Concentrations of related plasma cytokines in non-stimulated peripheral blood.

<p>Concentrations of IL-22, IFN-γ, IL-17, TNF-α, and IL-6 in plasma from CTLs, MHO, and T2D patients. (A) Significantly higher concentrations of IL-22 were observed in T2D patients (median, 47.56 pg/mL; range, 30.55–76.89 pg/mL) as compared to CTLs (median, 36.33 pg/mL; range, 31.93–40.62 pg/mL; <i>*P</i><0.0001) and MHO patients (median, 36.65 pg/mL; range, 29.52–55.70 pg/mL; <i>*P</i><0.0001). There was no significant difference in IL-22 between MHO patients and CTLs (<i>P</i>>0.05). (B) Significantly higher concentrations of IFN-γ were found in MHO (median, 1.76 pg/mL; range, 0.33–4.10 pg/mL; <i>*P</i><0.0001) and T2D patients (median, 1.08 pg/mL; range, 0.36–3.43 pg/mL; <i>*P</i><0.05) as compared to CTLs (median, 0.48 pg/mL; range, lower limit to 2.64 pg/mL). No significant difference was found between MHO and T2D patients. (C) Significantly higher concentrations of IL-17 were found in T2D patients (median, 3.84 pg/mL; range, 0.81–7.78 pg/mL) as compared to CTLs (median, 2.06 pg/mL; range, 0.81–3.04 pg/mL; <i>*P</i><0.0001) and MHO patients (median, 1.91 pg/mL; range, 0.89–5.11 pg/mL; <i>*P</i><0.0001). There was no significant difference between MHO patients and CTLs (<i>P</i>>0.05). (D) Significantly elevated TNF-α levels were found in MHO (median, 18.15 pg/mL; range, 10.08–49.81 pg/mL; <i>*P</i><0.01) and T2D patients (median, 46.98 pg/mL; range, 11.07–118.1 pg/mL; <i>*P</i><0.0001) as compared with CTLs (median, 5.28 pg/ml; range, lower limit to 23.36 pg/mL). Higher concentrations of TNF-α were also observed in T2D patients compared with MHO patients (<i>*P</i><0.0001). (E) Significantly elevated IL-6 levels were observed in T2D patients (median, 11.21 pg/mL; range, 3.09–47.24 pg/mL) as compared to CTLs (median, 7.53 pg/mL; range, 0.79–22.24 pg/mL; <i>*P</i><0.05). There was no significant difference between MHO patients (median, 7.85 pg/mL; range, 3.16–40.12 pg/mL) and CTLs and T2D patients (<i>P</i>>0.05). Correlation analyses between the indicated helper T-cell frequencies and corresponding plasma cytokine levels from each sub-cohort. There was a positive correlation between Th22 frequency and IL-22 concentration (A) and between Th17 and IL-17 (C). There was also a significant positive correlation between Th22 frequency and plasma TNF-α (D) (<i>*P</i><0.0001) and IL-6 (E) (<i>*P</i> = 0.0312) levels. Bars represent SEM. Numbers in each figure denote Spearman or Pearson <i>r</i> and <i>P</i> values, respectively.