Figure 2.

Differentiation of CD4⁺ T cells to CD4⁺ FOXP3⁺ T cells induced by thalidomide (TM), dexamethasone (DX), or TM/DX combinatorial treatment. Naive T cells were incubated with anti‐CD3 and anti‐CD28 antibodies, transforming growth factor‐β (TGF‐β), and interleukin‐2 (IL‐2) for 72 hr, and analysed by flow cytometry. (a) Dot plots showing regulatory T (Treg) cell analysis by flow cytometry. (b) Ratios of CD4⁺ FOXP3⁺ T cells. TM/DX combinatorial treatment increased the differentiation of CD4⁺ FOXP3⁺ T cells from Tnaive cells more so than DX‐only treatment. (c) Ratios of MFI of FOXP3 expression in CD4⁺ FOXP3⁺ T cells. (% of non‐treated controls, n = 5). *P < 0·05, **P < 0·01, and ***P < 0·001 compared with non‐treated controls; ^## P < 0·01 compared with 0·1 nm DX treatment; and ^†† P < 0·01 compared with 1 nm DX treatment. [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]