Interethnic and intraethnic differences in the frequency and activation markers of circulating monocytes.

<p>PBMCs were stained with monoclonal antibodies and subsequently analyzed using FACSCalibur. The samples were categorized as uninfected Dogon (n = 20), infected Dogon (n = 20), uninfected Fulani (n = 13) and infected Fulani (n = 10). An increase of circulating monocytes was observed for both groups although only statistically significant for the Dogon (Figure 2A). There was a decreased expression of HLA-DR (Figure 2B) in classical monocytes for both ethnic groups. The levels of HLA-DR were also suppressed in the inflammatory monocytes although not statistically significant for the Dogon. The expression of CD86 (Figure 2C) was decreased on both monocytic subsets although only statistically significant for the Dogon classical monocytes from both Dogon and Fulani. Although the levels of activation markers seem similarly regulated in both groups the classical monocytes of the Fulani exhibit a pattern of higher activation when undergoing infection than the Dogon when infected. 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 by Mann-Whitney rank sum test. *; p≤0.05. ***; p<0.001.