Fig 6. Immune checkpoint inhibition fails to increase cytokine concentrations in early sepsis patients’ whole blood assays.

A, B Supernatant cytokine concentrations in whole blood assays of sepsis patients within 24 h of meeting Sepsis-3 criteria at baseline and when incubated with vehicle, LPS (E. coli O111:B4) only, the anti PD-1 mAb Nivolumab or Pembrolizumab, the anti PD-L1 mAb Atezolizumab, or the anti CTLA-4 mAb Ipilimumab with or without 10 (A; n = 44 patients) or 1 (B; n = 14 patients) ng/ml LPS. Addition of monoclonal antibodies at incubation start and of LPS 6 h thereafter. Overall incubation time was 22 h and supernatant cytokine concentrations were compared at the end of incubation. Friedman test with Dunn’s post-test for multiple comparison against the respective control (‘vehicle’ or ‘LPS only’, as appropriate). Neither blockade of PD-1, PD-L1, nor CTLA-4 increased the unstimulated or LPS stimulated cytokine production.