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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2018 May 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Invest Dermatol. 2016 Dec 22;137(5):1042–1050. doi: 10.1016/j.jid.2016.11.037

Figure 4. SSc CD8+CD28− T cells produce high levels of IL-13.

Figure 4

Purified CD8+CD28+ and CD8+CD28− T-cell subsets from SSc patients and NDs were cultured in vitro for 5 days and then stimulated for 6 hours with PMA and ionomycin. Intracellular cytokine staining was used to determine the proportion of IL-13+ (n=9), IL-10+ (n=8), and IFNγ+ (n=8) cells. (a) A representative example from one SSc patient is shown. (b) Comparison of the mean percentage of cytokine-positive cells in each CD8+ T-cell subset from SSc patients and age-matched NDs. Each symbol represents one patient or a control. Statistics by ANOVA followed by post hoc Tukey’s test. (c) Cytokine production by skin-resident CD8+CD28− T cells was determined as indicated above. A representative example is shown (upper panels). Comparison of cytokine production by CD8+CD28− T cells in the blood and skin of (n=5) (lower panel). Statistics by ANOVA followed by post hoc Tukey’s test. (d) Representative examples of H&E staining of NS and SSc skin (upper panel – scale bar = 40μm). Representative example of double color immunofluorescence staining for CD8 and IL-13, 1000× (lower panels – scale bar = 1μm). Skin samples from 5 early dcSSc patients and 4 NDs were analyzed giving similar results. DAPI stains nuclei.