Elevated Natural Killer Cell-Mediated Cytotoxicity Is Associated with Cavity Formation in Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients

Figure 2

The expression levels of cytokines produced by NK cells from pulmonary TB patients with cavity or noncavity cultured with MTB H37Rv protein lysates. NK cells from fourteen pulmonary TB patients with cavity and eleven pulmonary TB patients with noncavity were isolated and cocultured with MTB H37Rv protein lysates to analyze the expression level of cytokines by (a) RT-qPCR and (b) ELISA. Throughout, values were derived using a Mann–Whitney test except TNF-α. For TNF-α, the value was derived using unpaired Student’s -test due to normal distribution and homogeneity of variance.

(a)

(b)