Effect of IL-7-treatment on peripheral blood T-lymphocyte kinetics.

<p>(A) Mean absolute numbers (± SEM) of circulating total, naïve, memory and effector CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cells in untreated (blue) and IL-7-treated (red) animals. The naïve (CD28⁺95⁻), memory (CD28⁺95⁺) and effector (CD28⁻95⁺) T-cell subsets were identified using a combination of mAbs against CD28 and CD95. (B) Subset analysis of memory CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cells in untreated (blue) and IL-7-treated (red) animals. The various memory T-cell subsets (central memory, CM; transitional memory, TM; and effector memory, EM) were identified using a combination of CD28, CD95, CD62L and CD197/CCR7. Absolute counts for each T-lymphocyte subpopulation were calculated by multiplying the percent values obtained by flow cytometry by the total lymphocyte counts obtained from the complete blood counts (CBC). The grey shaded area indicates the IL-7-treatment period; blue and red asterisks denote significant differences versus baseline values in untreated and IL-7-treated animals, respectively (* p<0.05, ** p<0.01, by paired Student's t test).