For in vitro assays, CD8+ T cells were cultured in RPMI 1640 medium (Life Technologies, Paisley, UK) supplemented with 10% heat-inactivated fetal bovine serum (Gibco, Grand Island, NY, USA) and 1% penicillin and streptomycin (Solarbio, Beijing, China), and were stimulated with recombinant human IL-2 (5 ng/mL, R&D Systems, Minneapolis, MN, USA), anti-human CD3 antibodies (1 ng/mL, eBioscience, San Diego, CA, USA), and anti-human CD28 antibodies (1 ng/mL, eBioscience) for 72 h (37°C, 5% CO2). Recombinant fusion protein PD-L1-Fc (0.5 μg/mL, R&D Systems), decitabine (100 nM), anti-human PD-1 antibody (10 μg/mL, BioLegend, CA, USA), or PBS were added to the incubation media. Subsequently, CD8+ T cells were collected for flow cytometry, CTLs-induced platelet apoptosis, and bisulfite sequence PCR.
For ITP patients receiving decitabine, we isolated CD8+ T cells before (0) and after (12 weeks) the administration of decitabine and determine the function of CD8+ T cells by flow cytometry and CTLs-induced platelet apoptosis analysis.