Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were isolated by density-gradient centrifugation using
Ficoll-Paque Plus (Amersham Biosciences, Buckinghamshire, UK). The cells were then resuspended to 1 × 10
6 per mL in
RPMI-1640 culture medium (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA, USA) containing 10% fetal calf serum, and stained with the following monoclonal antibodies:
antihuman CD3-BV510, antihuman CD4-APC-H7,
antihuman CXCR5-PerCP-Cy5.5, antihuman CXCR3-PE-Cy7, antihuman CCR6-PE, antihuman CD45RA-PE-CF594, antihuman ICOS-BV421, antihuman PD1-FITC,
antihuman CD27-PE, antihuman CD20-APC-H7,
antihuman CD38-PerCP-Cy5.5,
antihuman CD19-PE-cy7 or
isotype-matched control IgG (BD PharMingen San Diego, CA, U.S.). After washing twice with phosphate-buffered saline (containing 0.1% (w/v) NaN3), the samples were analyzed using
FACS Aria II (BD Sciences, San Jose, USA); at least 50,000 events per sample were analyzed using FlowJo software (v7.6.2). The absolute count of cells was calculated on the basis of the cell proportion multiplied by the absolute number of lymphocytes.
Che Y., Qiu J., Jin T., Yin F., Li M, & Jiang Y. (2016). Circulating memory T follicular helper subsets, Tfh2 and Tfh17, participate in the pathogenesis of Guillain-Barré syndrome. Scientific Reports, 6, 20963.