Figure 3. Functional property of S-Ag specific T cells disclosed on the basis of cytokine secretion. PBMCs from all subjects were stimulated with or without mixed S-Ag peptides plus anti-CD28 for 72 h. The culture supernatants were collected and assessed for the production of IFN-γ (A), TNF-α (B), and IL-17 (C) by ELISA. The difference in cytokine levels between the negative control and S-Ag stimulation in four groups was analyzed using Student’s t-test. The cytokine production by PBMCs upon S-Ag stimulation in each of the four groups was analyzed by ANOVA. Significant statistical difference was set at p<0.05 (*) and p<0.01 (#); ns means not significant while bars represent mean values.