3.3 Cytokine levels under different stimulations in asthmatic preschoolers
No significant differences could be observed for baseline cytokine levels between healthy and asthmatic subjects, as displayed in Online Supplementary figure S-Fig. 1.
Asthmatic children showed high numbers of cytokines increased in response to various stimuli compared to healthy subjects (Fig. 2A). Particularly, R848 and poly I:C were the stimulants that induced IL-10, IL-13, IL-25, IFNγ, CCL4 and CXCL10, while stimulation with PHA and zymo induced IFNα2 and CCL4, respectively.
In contrast, only IL-7 and IFNλ-2 were found to be lower in asthmatic in comparison to healthy subjects after stimulation with PHA and poly I:C (Fig. 2B). Cytokines that showed no significant difference between the two groups after polyclonal stimulation are found in Online Supplementary (S-Fig. 2 - S-Fig. 5).