Figure 1

Reproducibility of T cell responses to HbsAg. PBMCs from 4 donors were independently purified by density gradient centrifugation and frozen by two different operators. PBMCs were then thawed and cultured with a HBsAg peptide pool or vehicle for 18 hours, in the presence of brefeldin A and the expression of IL-2, INF-γ and TNF-α in CD3⁺CD4⁺ and CD3⁺CD8⁺ cells was determined by specific staining and flow cytometry analysis. Background cytokine expression from unstimulated cells was subtracted from HBsAg peptide-stimulated cells. Percentages of CD4⁺ (panel A) and CD8⁺ (panel B) T cells either IL-2^- IFN-γ⁺ TNF-α^-, IL-2^- IFN-γ^-TNF-α⁺, IL-2⁺ IFN-γ^- TNF-α^-, IL-2^- IFN-γ⁺ TNF-α⁺, IL-2⁺ IFN-γ^- TNF-α⁺, IL-2⁺ IFN-γ⁺ TNF-α^- or IL-2⁺ IFN-γ⁺ TNF-α⁺ obtained for the four donors in two independent experiments are presented.