Analysis of Sodium Chloride Intake and Treg/Th17 Lymphocytes in Healthy Individuals and Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis or Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Figure 5

In vitro differentiation of Th17 cells in healthy controls and patients with RA, with low- and high-salt intake. PBMC were cultured for seven days in the presence or not of a cytokine cocktail to induce the differentiation of Th17 cells, as described in the Materials and Methods. (a) Flow cytometry analysis of CD4⁺IL-17A⁺IL-22⁺ cells. A representative dot plot (forward versus side scatter) and histograms of IL-17 and IL-22 expression are shown. Data correspond to a patient with RA with high-salt intake. (b, c) Percent of Th17 cells in PBMC cultures with the addition or not of a cytokine cocktail that induces the differentiation of these cells. Data correspond to patients with RA with low- and high-salt intake, as indicated. (d) Comparison of the percent of Th17 cells induced in vitro in PBMC from RA patients with low- and high-salt intake. Data correspond to the arithmetic mean and SD. .

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