Direct and indirect effects of retinoic acid on human Th2 cytokine and chemokine expression by human T lymphocytes

Table 1 Effects of ATRA and 9-cis-RA on human type 1 and type 2 cytokine expression by human PBMC post TCR stimulation^a.

Cytokine	Control^a	ATRA^a	9-*cis*-RA^a	Significance^c
IL-4 (pg/ml)	36 ± 15	79 ± 9	73 ± 14	Control vs ATRA, p = 0.0003 Control vs 9-cis-RA, p = 0.010 ATRA vs 9-cis-RA, NS
IL-5 (pg/ml)	174 ± 39	579 ± 193	596 ± 179	Control vs ATRA, p = 0.034 Control vs 9-cis-RA, p = 0.019 ATRA vs 9-cis-RA, NS
IL-10 (pg/ml)	182 ± 13	172 ± 31	148 ± 31	Control vs ATRA, NS Control vs 9-cis-RA, NS ATRA vs 9-cis-RA, NS
IL-13 (ng/ml)	1.10 ± 0.15	1.80 ± 0.26	1.90 ± 0.25	Control vs ATRA, p = 0.0003 Control vs 9-cis-RA, p = 0.010 ATRA vs 9-cis-RA, NS
IFN-γ (ng/ml)	14.5 ± 3.4	7.4 ± 1.9	6.1 ± 1.5	Control vs ATRA, p = 0.0077 Control vs 9-cis-RA, p = 0.0065 ATRA vs 9-cis-RA, NS
IL-12 (pg/ml)	243 ± 35	61 ± 12	50 ± 10	Control vs ATRA, p = 0.0002 Control vs 9-cis-RA, p = 0.0003 ATRA vs 9-cis-RA, NS
IL-15 (pg/ml)	100 ± 6	111 ± 10	113 ± 7	Control vs ATRA, NS Control vs 9-cis-RA, NS ATRA vs 9-cis-RA, NS
TNF-α (ng/ml)	6.38 ± 1.04	2.86 ± 0.31	2.13 ± 0.36	Control vs ATRA, p = 0.0030 Control vs 9-cis-RA, p = 0.0006 ATRA vs 9-cis-RA, p = 0.049

^a Supernatants of anti-CD3 mAb(200 ng/ml)-activated human PBMC (2.5 × 10⁶/ml) treated with ETOH, ATRA (10^-7 M), or 9-cis-RA (10^-7 M) for 48 h were examined for the expression of various cytokines by ELISA analysis.
^b The results are expressed either as ng/ml or pg/ml ± SD (as designated in the cytokine column above). The data and statistical calculations were performed with data derived from at least 5 different donors.
^c The data was analyzed for equality of variance using Fischer's F test. If the variance was heterogeneous, the appropriate transformation of the data was performed. A two-tailed paired T test was then used to determine statistical significance. A P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant for all analysis.

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