Fig. 3
From: Self-reactive T cells induce and perpetuate chronic relapsing arthritis
The ability of CD4+ T cells to transfer chronic arthritis correlates with their expression of Th17-associated cytokines. a Top: representative flow cytometric plots of CD4+ T cells from various lymphoid organs of pristane-injected rats (14 days after pristane injection) before and after in vitro isolation. Bottom: transcript levels, determined by quantitative RT-PCR and depicted as fold change (FC), of various cytokines in CD4+ T cells from lymph node and spleen, before (–) and 14 days after (+) injection of pristane. The expression of each target gene was normalized to the geometric mean of the expression of Arbp, Gusb, and Actb. n = 4 rats/group. b Arthritis development in rats transferred with 2 × 107 in vitro-re-stimulated cells from inguinal or mesenteric LNs (n = 5–9 rats/group) of pristane-injected donors. c Corresponding data (as in a) for various transcription factors. Box and whisker plots in a show upper and lower quartiles (the outer boundaries of the box), median (horizontal line inside box) and highest and lowest observations (whiskers). Data in c shows fold change ± SD. Statistical analyses using the Mann-Whitney U test; *< 0.05, **< 0.01.1, ***< 0.001. iLN, inguinal lymph nodes; mLN, mesenteric lymph nodes; Spl, spleen