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

Table 3

Cytokine responses in SLE patients and HCs upon SEB stimulation.

Cytokine	Median concentration (pg/mL) range in; SLE patients ()	Median concentration (pg/mL) range in; HCs ()	value for comparison of SLE patients and HCs
IL2	1988 78–6827	2650 78–4870	0.169
IL12	64 29–159	97 27–170	0.035
IFNγ	20509 1376–80000	67048 16193–80000	0.001
IL18	1240 818–2625	1126 773–2035	0.359
IL4	281 111–1202	362 139–678	0.107
IL5	13 4–138	36 13–116	0.268
TNFα	891 78–3941	2002 625–4572	0.083
TNFβ	344 25–1242	649 244–1172	0.083
IL6	3476 78–20521	9141 4340–33403	0.026
IL17	433 57–2599	669 259–4000	0.064
IL1β	4000 93–4000	4000 4000-4000	0.012
TGFβ	1450 568–5485	1490 643–6211	0.121
IL10	811 160–2276	1920 444–4491	0.003
GM-CSF	475 112–1620	1236 554–3713	0.005

SEB: staphylococcal enterotoxin B; SLE: systemic lupus erythematosus; HCs: healthy controls; IL: interleukin; IFN: interferon; TNF: tumor necrosis factor; GM-CSF: granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor.
All cytokine responses were compared using Wilcoxon matched-pairs test, except for IL1β responses, which were compared using the Chi-squared test.