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. 2020 May 19;11:809. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.00809

Figure 3.

Figure 3

Distribution of CD4+ T cells and T helper subsets in the study groups. (A) CD4+ T and CD4+CD45RA− T cells were lower in myasthenia gravis patients with AChR antibodies (AChR-MG) (n = 47, n = 30, both p < 0.001) and in myasthenia gravis patients without detectable antibodies (SN-MG) (n = 16, p = 0.004 and n = 11, p = 0.003) compared with those in HC (n = 37 and n = 25). (B) The Th17 (CXCR3−CCR6+) cell subset was increased in AChR-MG (p < 0.001) and SN-MG (p = 0.001) groups compared with that in HC. Both AChR-MG immunosuppressive (IS)-positive (n = 26) and IS-negative (n = 21) groups had higher Th17 cells compared to HC (p = 0.002 and p = 0.001). Immunosuppressive (IS) treatment induced a relative increase of Th2 cells (p = 0.021) which were significantly lower than those in HC (p = 0.013). Both IS-positive (n = 7) and IS-negative (n = 9) patients had higher Th17 cell populations (p = 0.001 and p = 0.036) in the SN-MG group. The results are compared with non-parametric tests (Mann–Whitney U test). * depicts a significant difference.