Fig. 1

Profile of subjects with high frequency of neutrophils, monocytes and NK-cells producing proinflammatory and regulatory cytokines. a The cytokine profile is presented as percentage of individuals with high frequency of cytokine-producing cells in each age group: Newborn – 0 years (n = 12); Children – 6–10 years (n = 23); Adolescent – 11–20 years (n = 22); Adults – 21–50 (n = 80); Middle Aged – 51–60 (n = 22); Elderly – 61–85 (n = 22). Bars represent the percentage of subjects with high frequency of neutrophils producing tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, interferon (IFN)-γ, interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-10, monocytes producing TNF-α and IL-10, and NK-cells producing TNF-α, IFN-γ and IL-4. Relevant differences were considered when the percentage of individuals with high frequency cells producing a given cytokine emerged above the 50th percentile (continuous line). Spearman correlation was performed to evaluate either increase or decrease in frequency of cytokine-producing cells among age groups. Significant positive or negative correlations were represented by dotted arrows (↑). b Spearman’s rank correlation. Corresponding Pearson’s correlation coefficient (r) and p value between cytokine-producing cell frequency and age in years is shown