Fig 6. TLR2 stimulation induces expansion of CD45Rb^Hi effector/memory T cells.

To further characterize the phenotype and viability of the T cells after stimulation, we measured expression of CD25 and CD45Rb (A) and CD62L and CD44 (B) by flow cytometry of cells isolated using MACS after 3 days of stimulation. P3C-stimulated cells are most similar to freshly isolated T cells without stimulation (No Stim), while αCD3 induced a robust shift to CD25⁺CD45R^hi (85.4%) which was increased even further to 94.5% in response to P3C. Likewise, the majority of cells following stimulation with αCD3 were CD62L^-CD44⁺, with P3C co-stimulation having little impact on this pattern. (C) A majority of T cells without stimulation were dead or dying, while all stimulation conditions lead to increased viability as measured by propidium iodide exclusion.