Figure 5.

The functional profile of CMV-specific m24⁺ CD4⁺ WB T cells. WB of a DRB1*11⁺ donor was stimulated with CMV/HPT peptide. (A) Frequencies of m24 Ab staining, CD154, and cytokine expression within CD4⁺ T cells are shown as bar graphs (at the indicated times and after subtraction of the background assessed in the control test); empty bars represent total m24⁺ cells, positive gray bars represent marker⁺ (CD154, TNF, IFN-γ, or IL-2) m24⁺ CD4⁺ T cells, whereas negative gray bars (practically not visible) are marker⁺m24^neg CD4⁺ T cells. (B) Staining was obtained after 6 h without stimulation (control, top) or in the presence of CMV/HPT (middle). Numbers on density plots indicate frequencies among CD4⁺ T cells. m24⁺ CD154^neg, m24⁺ CD154⁺, and m24^neg CD154⁺ subsets were gated (middle panel: blue, red, and black frames, respectively) and further displayed as histograms according to their TNF, IFN-γ, and IL-2 expression (bottom). Numbers on histograms indicate frequencies of the respective color-coded population among CD4⁺ T cells (markers are shown). Gating strategy is as shown in Figure 1A.