Effects of exogenous IL-2 on proliferation capacity of cyclotide-treated lymphocytes.

<p>CFSE-labeled primary human lymphocytes were pretreated with CsA or cyclotides (4 µM each) and were activated using PHA-L (10 µg/mL), followed by washing off the cyclotides and activation stimuli. Furthermore, the cells were cultured without (<b>A</b> and <b>B</b>) or in the presence of exogenous recombinant human IL-2 (<b>C</b> and <b>D</b>). The proliferation capacity of the cells was analyzed at day three by flow cytometry. Representative data are presented in dot plots (<b>A</b> and <b>B</b>) and summary of three independent experiments were presented as mean ± SD (<b>B</b> and <b>D</b>). The values in dot plots represents the amount of proliferated lymphocytes on which the quantification to control is based. The asterisks represent significant differences of treated cells in comparison to ctrl (PHA-L stimulated cells alone) (*<i>P</i> <0.05, **<i>P</i> <0.01, ***<i>P</i> <0.001).