Research Article

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

Figure 6

Cytokines, IL12 (a), IL18 (b), IL10 (c), and TNFα (d), with similar induction in SLE patients and in HCs upon EBV-EA/D stimulation. IL12 (a), IL18 (b), IL10 (c), and TNFα (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 0.639, 0.600, 0.107, and 0.600 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.