MPA did not affect maturation marker expression induced by LPS on DCs but inhibited cytokine synthesis. (A) MPA did not affect maturation marker expression induced by LPS on DCs. Surface marker expression was analyzed on human DC after maturation with LPS (50 ng/mL) in the presence or absence of MPA (MPA-DCs or mDCs, respectively). Black histograms and gray histograms represent the expression of the cell-surface markers indicated and isotype control mAbs, respectively. (B) MPA inhibited cytokine synthesis by DCs. The levels of IL-12, IFN-γ, and TNF-α were detected by ELISA in supernatants of mDC and MPA-DC cultures. The results are expressed in arbitrary units where the value 100 was given to mDCs. Statistical analyses were performed using the Wilcoxon test for paired nonparametric data. Significance is indicated by P value. (C) Intracytoplasmic IFN-γ in MPA-DCs and in mDCs. Cells were double stained for DC-SIGN and intracytoplasmic IFN-γ. The percentage of double positive cells is indicated on the figure. The results are representative of 1 of 5 experiments.