Carboxylfluorescein succinimidyl ester (CFSE) labeling was used to detect the proliferation of CD3 + T cells. Briefly, 1.3x10 6 CD3+ T cells were co-cultured with MDSCs at ratios of 1:0, 1:1, 3:1 and 10:1 in RPMI-1640 medium, supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (
FBS; Gibco Life Technologies, Carlsbad, CA, USA) and stimulated with anti-CD3 and CD28 monoclonal antibodies (Sigma-Aldrich). All CD3+ T cells were seeded into a
96-well plate (Costar, Lowell, MA, USA) in the presence or absence of MDSCs, as mentioned above. The cells were harvested following culturing for 5 days and stained with
anti-CD4-APC and
anti-CD8-PerCp. As the CFSE signal was diluted with each cell division, cells exhibiting low fluorescence intensity of CFSE were considered to have proliferated. IFN-γ in the supernatant was measured using an ELISA kit (RapidBio Laboratory, Calabasas, CA, USA), according to the manufacturer's instructions.
Apoptosis assay. The CD3+ T cells were co-cultured with MDSCs at the ratios mentioned above and treated with anti-CD3 and CD28 monoclonal antibodies. Following incubation for 48 h, the cells were collected and stained with
annexin-V-FITC, 7-amino-actinomycin D (7-AAD) (eBioscience, San Diego, CA, USA),
anti-CD4-APC and
anti-CD8-PerCp to analyze the apoptosis of the CD4 and CD8 cells.
Li H., Dai F., Peng Q., Gan H., Zheng J., Xia Y, & Zhang W. (2015). Myeloid-derived suppressor cells suppress CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cell responses in autoimmune hepatitis. Molecular medicine reports, 12(3).