FIG. 3.

Plasma cytokine concentrations. Venous blood was collected into EDTA-containing vials from healthy children with PMM (n = 18) or PSM (n = 10). Plasma was separated, and quantitative sandwich enzyme immunoassays were used to determine concentrations of IL-12 (P = 0.43) (A), IFN-γ (P = 0.23) (B), TGF-β1 (P = 0.6) (C), and TNF-α (P = 0.03) (D) in plasma. The graph shows the means + standard errors of the mean (error bars) for each of the two groups. Comparisons between the PMM and PSM groups were made by using the Wilcoxon rank sum and Mann-Whitney U tests (statistical significance [P < 0.05]). ∗, P < 0.05 (for the PMM versus the PSM groups).