Five millilitres of venous blood was collected from the study subjects for tests of haematological parameters. Samples were run on the Beckman Coulter LH 750 Haematology Analyzer (Beckman Coulter, Inc, Miami, FL, USA) to obtain a complete blood count and erythrocyte sedimentation rate as previously described [31]. Isolation of PBMCs and T cells.  Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were obtained from 10 ml of venous blood using a Ficoll selleck screening library gradient. T cells were isolated by negative selection using CD11b, CD16, CD20, CD56 and CD66 antibodies and magnetic beads (Pan T Cell Isolation kit; Miltenyi Biotec, Auburn, CA, USA). The purity of negatively selected T cells was verified

using FACS analysis with anti-CD3 and anti-CD19 antibodies and was found to be >95%. RT-PCR.  Total RNA was isolated from PBMCs, T cells or non-T cells using Trizol reagent (Invitrogen, USA). RNA (1 μg) was reverse transcribed using MulV reverse transcriptase (Invitrogen, Grand Island, NY, USA) as described [32]. Real-time

PCR was performed in duplicate 20-μl reactions containing Platinum® SYBR® Green qPCR Supermix-UDG (Invitrogen), 150 nm forward and reverse primers and 2 μl of cDNA on an ABI Prism® 7500 sequence detection system (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA). HuPO (human acidic ribosomal protein) primer sequences were obtained this website from published reports [33]. SOCS1, SOCS3, T-bet and GATA3 primer sequences were designed using Chorioepithelioma primer express software (version 3.0; Applied Biosystems). Sequence-specific primers used were HuPO Forward 5′-GCTTCCTGGAGGGTGTCC-3 HuPO Reverse 5′-GGACTCGTTTGTACCCGTTG-3 SOCS1 Forward 5′-TTTTTCGCCCTTAGCGTGA-3 SOCS1 Reverse 5′-AGCAGCTCGAAGAGGCAGTC-3 SOCS3 Forward 5′-TGAGCGCGGCTACAGCTT-3′; SOCS3 Reverse 5′-TCCTTAATGTCACGCACGATTT-3 IFN-γ Forward 5′-TATGATTCTGGCTAAGGA-3 IFN-γ Reverse 5′-CCCCAATGGTACAGGTTTCT-3 T-bet Forward 5′-AACACAGGAGCGCACTGG AT-3 T-bet Reverse 5′-TCTGGCTCTCCGTCGTTCA-3 GATA3 Forward 5′-ACCGGCTTCGGATGCAA-3′; GATA3 Reverse 5′-TGCTCTCCTGGCTGCAGAC-3′. Two-fold dilutions of cDNA samples were amplified to control amplification efficiency and

to determine the optimal concentration required for each primer pair. HuPO was used as a control gene to calculate the ΔCt values for individual samples. The relative amount of cytokine/HuPO transcripts was calculated using the method as described [34]. These values were then used to calculate the relative expression of cytokine mRNA in each of the samples tested [34]. Measurement of IFN-γ, IL6, TNFα and IL10 secretion.  Isolated PBMCs were cultured for 18 h in RPMI 1640 medium, l-glutamine (2 mm), (Sigma-Aldrich, ST. Louis, MO, USA) with 10% autologous serum at 37 °C after which cellular supernatants were collected. Concentrations of IFN-γ, IL6, TNFα and IL10 were measured in culture supernatants using Human Cytokine Flow Cytometric Bead Array (CBA) from BD Biosciences, San Jose, CA, USA, as described previously [35]. Statistical analysis.