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. 2020 Nov 19;184(1):149–168.e17. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.11.025

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Pro-inflammatory Cytokines Are Increased in COVID-19, and Co-treatment of TNF-α and IFN-γ Induces Cell Death

(A) Heatmap depicting the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines in serum of patients with COVID-19 and healthy people (Lucas et al., 2020).

(B) Pro-inflammatory cytokines released from PBMCs infected with SARS-CoV-2.

(C) Percent of BMDMs that are dead 48 h after cytokine treatment using the IncuCyte imaging system and propidium iodide (PI) staining. “Cocktail-1” contained all 8 cytokines (IL-6, IL-18, IFN-γ, IL-15, TNF-α, IL-1α, IL-1β, and IL-2).

(D) Percent of BMDMs that are dead 48 h after treatment with the indicated combination of cytokines.

(E) Real-time analysis of cell death in BMDMs treated with the indicated cytokines.

(F and G) Representative images of cell death in BMDMs (F) and THP-1 cells (G) after 48 h of the indicated treatments. Scale bar, 50 μm.

Data are representative of at least three independent experiments. ∗∗p < 0.01; ∗∗∗∗p < 0.0001. Analysis was performed using the one-way ANOVA (B–D) or the two-way ANOVA (E). Significance asterisks in (C) and (D) indicate the comparison to the media-treated control. Data are shown as mean ± SEM (B–E). See also Figure S1.