Interethnic and intraethnic differences in the TNF-α/IL-10 and IFN-γ/IL-10 ratios upon TLR stimulation of PBMCs.

<p>PBMCs (1 million/ml) were stimulated or not with LPS (100 ng/ml), CpG-A (3 µg/ml) or imiquimod (1 µg/ml). After 16 hours, supernatants were collected, cytokine levels were analyzed and the TNF-α/IL-10 (Figure 4A) and IFN-γ/IL-10 (Figure 4B) ratios were calculated. The samples from 77 children were categorized as uninfected Dogon (n = 20), infected Dogon (n = 20), uninfected Fulani (n = 23) and infected Fulani (n = 14). The TNF-α/IL-10 ratio (Figure 4A) was significantly lower in the infected Dogon as compared to their uninfected peers when stimulated with CpG or imiquimod. This resulted in significantly higher TNF-α/IL-10 ratio of infected Fulani as compared to the infected Dogon. Due to the severe suppression of IFN-γ the IFN-γ/IL-10 ratios (Figure 4B) were severely suppressed in the LPS and CpG stimulated cells of the Dogon and therefore higher in the infected Fulani than in the infected Dogon. The boxplots illustrate the medians and the 25^th and 75^th quartile and the whiskers represent the 10% and 90% percentiles. Data were analyzed using Mann-Whitney rank sum test. *; p≤0.05. **; p<0.01. ***; p<0.001.