Blood from women was obtained from our IRB-approved Blood Donor Program at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. CD4+ T cells were purified with the CD4+ T cell isolation kit (Miltenyi Biotech) from frozen peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) as described before5 (link),8 (link). Purified blood CD4+ T cells were activated in vitro using X-vivo 15 media (Lonza, Walkersville, MD) with Phenol Red plus Phytohemagglutinin (PHA, 2.5 µg/ml; Sigma, St Louis, MO) and IL-2 (50 U/ml, AIDS Research and Reference Reagent Program, Division of AIDS, NIAID, NIH: Human rIL-2 from Dr. Maurice Gately, Hoffmann- La Roche Inc.) for 24 hr as described previously5 (link),8 (link). Activated CD4+ T cells were plated at a density of 1 × 105 cells per well in round-bottom 96-well culture plates (Corning, Corning, NY) in 0.1 ml of Immune cell media consisting of X-vivo 15 media supplemented with Phenol Red and 10% human AB serum (Valley Biomedical, Winchester, VA) prior to treatment.
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