Suppressive ODN promote the maturation of Th17 cells.

<p>Highly purified naive CD4⁺ T cells from female C57BL/6 mice were incubated for 2 h with 1 µM of suppressive or control ODN and then cultured for 3 days under Th0 or Th17 polarizing conditions (see methods section for details). (A) Frequency of cells producing IL-17A and IFN_γ in samples as determined by intracellular staining and flow cytometry. (B) Combined results (from 4 independent experiments) showing the mean+SD of the effects of treatment on the frequency of IL-17A⁺ cells. (C) Level of IL17A and IL-17F protein in culture supernatants of cells stimulated under Th17 polarizing conditions for 3 days (mean+SD of <u>4</u> experiments). (D) Level of mRNA encoding RORC determined by RT-PCR. mRNA levels in cells treated under Th17 polarizing conditions are compared to those generated under Th0 conditions after normalization to GAPDH mRNA for each sample. Each bar represent the mean+SD of 3 independent experiments. *, p<0.05; ***, p<0.001.