Fig. 4

Cytokines stimulate differentiation of RASF towards specific fibroblast subsets in vitro. a Dual color flow cytometry of fibroblasts stimulated with either TNF-α or TGF-β in vitro. Histograms of CD248 versus podoplanin (PDPN) expression following cytokine stimulation. Percentage of positive cells in each gate is displayed. b The percentage of PDPN⁺ and CD248⁺ cells measured by flow cytometry in cultured RASF in response to cytokine stimulation (TNF-α, 10 ng/ml; IL-1β, 1 ng/ml; TGF-β1, 10 ng/ml). Data are expressed as mean ± SEM of the number of PDPN- and CD248-expressing fibroblasts expressed as a percentage of total cells at each time from N = 5 donor cell lines. Representative histograms of flow cytometric quantification of marker expression following cytokine stimulation are shown. Arrow indicates removal of cytokine. IL interleukin, TGF transforming growth factor, TNF tumor necrosis factor