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. 2018 Jul 18;9:1665. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2018.01665

Figure 7.

Figure 7

Endothelial microparticles (EMPs) release from microvascular endothelial cells (ECs) induced by natural killer (NK) cells from systemic sclerosis (SSc) patients. EMPs were obtained from the supernatant of overnight-cultured human microvascular dermal EC (HMVEC-d) line. (A) HMVEC-d were used as ECs targets and cultured with medium (med), i.e., EBM2 + 25% FCS ± IFNγ (50 ng/ml)/TNFα (20 ng/ml) or serum of SSc patients or healthy controls (HCtl) ± their autologous peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) (n = 10 and n = 9, respectively) with a PBMCs/HMVEC-d target ratio of 1/1. (B) HMVEC-d were cultured with EBM2 medium with serum from SSc patients or healthy controls and purified NK cells (pur. NK) from SSc patients (n = 10) or healthy controls (n = 9–10) with a NK cells/HMVEC-d ratio of 2/1. Results were expressed as median number of EMPs per microliter ± interquartile range. Cumulative data from 10 independent experiments. Statistical significance was established using the non-parametric paired Wilcoxon U-test. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.005.