Figure 4.

Cytokine production by peripheral blood T cells from SLE patients after ICOS co-stimulation. Peripheral blood T cells were isolated from patients with active SLE (n = 14), patients with inactive SLE (n = 12) and normal control individuals (n = 12) and cultured with or without ICOS co-stimulation for 72 hours; the culture supernatants were collected and the production of IFN-γ, IL-4 and IL-10 were determined by ELISA. (a) Production of IFN-γ without stimulation. (b) Production of IFN-γ with ICOS co-stimulation. (c) The production of IL-4 and IL-10 with or without ICOS co-stimulation. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.005 by Mann-Whitney U-test. #P < 0.05, ##P < 0.01, ###P < 0.005 by Wilcoxon rank sum test. ICOS, inducible co-stimulator; NC, normal control; SLE, systemic lupus erythematosus.