Fig. 4

Absolute number of CD31-expressing naive CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cells and relative telomere length (RTL) of CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cells in end stage renal disease (ESRD) patients with skewing in TCR Vβ repertoire compared with age-matched ESRD patients without skewing in TCR Vβ repertoire. A typical flow cytometric example of the analysis of CD31-expression within naive CD4⁺ (left histogram) and CD8⁺ (right histogram) T cells (identified as depicted within Fig. 3a) is given in a. The number of CD31⁺ (b) CD4⁺ and (c) CD8⁺ naive T cells for young and old ESRD patients with a non- (open bars; young n = 11, elderly n = 3) and skewed (closed bars; young n = 10, elderly n = 21) TCR Vβ repertoire are given. In d, a typical flow cytometric example is depicted of the analysis to allow for the determination of relative telomere length (RTL). Histograms showing the median fluorescence intensity (MFI) of the FITC-channel of samples incubated without (unfilled peak) and with the FITC-labelled PNA-probe (filled peak) are shown for the CCRF-CEM 1301 subcell-line (left panel) and CD4⁺ (right panel), respectively. The RTL of (e) CD4⁺ and (f) CD8⁺ T cells are shown. Triangles represent the RTL of ESRD patients with a non-skewed TCR Vβ repertoire (young = 8, elderly n = 3) and squares correspond to ESRD patients with a skewed TCR Vβ repertoire (young n = 6, elderly n = 19). Data are given as median with interquartile range. * < 0.05; ** < 0.01; *** < 0.001; NS: not significant