Impaired Cytokine Responses to Epstein-Barr Virus Antigens in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Patients

Figure 5

Decreased induction of IL6 (a), TNFβ (b), IL1β (c), and GM-CSF (d) in SLE patients compared to HCs upon EBV-EA/D stimulation. IL6 (a), TNFβ (b), IL1β (c), and GM-CSF (d) quantified in dried blood spot samples from SLE patients (with normal lymphocyte levels, ) and sex- and age-matched HCs () by multiplexed Luminex assay with addition of HBR+. Left: cytokine concentrations (pg/mL) in SLE patients and HCs upon EBV-EA/D stimulation. Data are presented as median with interquartile range. values for comparison of SLE patients and HCs are 0.033, 0.010, 0.020, and 0.018 in (a), (b), (c), and (d), respectively. Right: induction of cytokines (pg/mL) from basic levels (PBS stimulation) by EBV-EA/D stimulation in SLE patients and HCs.