Fig. 3

Cytokine or chemokine production by young or aged PBMCs is altered by PMA/ionomycin, LPS, or NP treatment. PBMCs from young (n = 6) or aged (n = 4) adults were incubated with either no adjuvants (media), polyanhydride nanoparticles (NP), Micelles (Mi), LPS, PMA/ionomycin (PMA), or cyclic dinucleotide (CDN) adjuvant for 24 h and analyzed for production of cytokines, chemokines, or growth factors. A main effect of treatment was found for IFN-γ, TNFα, CXCL10, GM-CSF (p < 0.05) and trend for CCL4. In all comparisons with significant treatment effects, post hoc analysis show that PMA was greater than media alone (p < 0.05). LPS induced greater production of IFN-γ, GM-CSF and CXCL10 compared to media alone, and post hoc analyses also showed that NP treatment was greater than media alone for GM-CSF only, with a trend (p = 0.06) for TNFα > media. A main effect of age was observed for all cytokines shown (p < 0.05), with lower concentrations in culture supernatants of cells obtained from older adults. A significant treatment by age interaction for IFN-γ activation was found as indicated by *+ in the IFN-γ group