Figure 4

Profibrotic cytokines and chemokines are upregulated in cocultures. (A-C) Levels of IL-6 (A), CCL 2 (or MCP-1) (B), and latent TGF-β1 (C) were determined by ELISA in the culture supernatants after incubation with medium (white bars), anti-μ-chain antibodies at 5 μg/ml (grey bars), or anti-μ and rhBAFF at 100 ng/ml (black bars) in the presence or absence of blood B cells for 3 days. B cells were either in contact with SScHDF (contact) or seeded in the upper chamber of a transwell culture insert (transwell). Data are expressed as the median of duplicate samples of six independent experiments ± interquartile range. * < 0.05; **P < 0.01; #P < 0.05 for transwell compared with contact.