Figure 3.
Coronary artery-infiltrating T cells produced both IL-17 and IFN-γ. Equal length segments of atherosclerotic or macroscopically normal coronary arteries in organ culture were treated with agonistic antibodies (α) to CD3 (0.1 μg/mL) and CD28 (1 μg/mL) for 24-72 hr or no antibodies for 72 hr (control) and supernatant levels of IL-17 (A) and IFN-γ (B) were measured by ELISA. Alternatively, atherosclerotic coronary artery rings were treated with cytokines either alone or in various combinations, including IL-1α (1 ng/mL), IL-6 (30 ng/mL), IL-15 (30 ng/mL), IL-21 (30 ng/ml), IL-23 (30 ng/mL), and TGF-β1 (10 ng/mL) or with the well characterized T cell activators PMA (1 μg/mL) and ionomycin (1 μM) for 48 hr and IL-17 supernatant levels were measured by ELISA (C). The data are means ± SEM (n=6-12) and are pooled from independent experiments using arteries from six different donors. The dotted line represents the assay's lower limit of detection and statistical analyses were not performed for responses to inflammatory cytokines resulting in IL-17 concentrations below this level. *P<0.05 and **P<0.001, treated vs. control and #P<0.05 atherosclerotic vs. non-diseased (Repeated Measures ANOVA).