Figure 2.

Circulating levels of cytokines and cellular subsets in controls and SLE patients according to their IFN-score. The expression of four IRGs was quantified in blood samples from SLE patients (SLE) and healthy controls (C). (A) Scatter plots display IFN-score in SLE and C. Dotted line represents the P⁹⁰ of IFN-score in controls, employed to classify SLE patients in IFN^neg or IFN^pos individuals. (B) Serum levels of IL-6, CXCL10, ICAM-1, CCL2, CCL3, and IFNγ in IFN^neg vs. IFN^pos patients. (C) Total CD4⁺CD28^null and activated conventional or senescent CD4⁺ T-cells (CD25⁺CD28⁺ and CD25⁺CD28^null, respectively) in IFN^neg and IFN^pos SLE groups compared with controls. Representative dot plots of CD4 vs. CD28 expression in gated T-cells from a SLE patient are shown. Histograms represent CD25 expression in a SLE patient as an example (shaded) with the respective isotype matched control antibody (dotted line). Numbers in plots indicate the median fluorescence intensity (MFI) with the matched irrelevant control value subtracted (histograms) or percentage of gated cells (dot-plots). Horizontal lines represent median and interquartile range; statistical differences among groups were evaluated by Mann-Whitney U-test. (D) Correlations among activated subsets of CD4⁺ T-cells and myeloid populations in IFN^neg/IFN^pos patients and controls, where the color of the tiles is proportional to the strength of the correlation between each pair of variables and the numbers represented in the correlograms are the ρ-coefficients (Spearman tests).