Figure 3.

HAM/TSP patients display a higher frequency of CD28-/CD8+ T cells and inflammatory cytokine producing T cells than do asymptomatic carriers. PBMC from 4 HAM/TSP and 8 asymptomatic carriers were analyzed ex vivo or following a 20 hour media alone culture for the expression of CD4+ and CD8+ T cell subpopulations using flow cytometry. Figure 3A shows the frequency of CD8 cells and the subpopulations defined by CD28 expression. Figure 3B shows the frequency of total lymphocytes producing TNF-α and IFN-γ. Figure 3C shows the relative contribution of CD4+ or CD8+ T cells to the overall cytokine producing population shown in Figure 3B. The data represent the mean ± S.D and the asterisk represents differences with a p < 0.05 (Mann-Whitney U Test).