Fig. 4

The regulatory effect of HGF secreted by MSCs on cytokine production in CD4+ T cells detected by ELISA. We found that MSCs significantly increased the CD4+ T cell secretion of IL-10 (p < 0.01, a) and TGF-β (p < 0.01, b) but inhibited the CD4+ T cell secretion of IL-17 (p < 0.05, c) and IL-6 (p < 0.01, d). However, the MSC-induced effects were inhibited by an anti-HGF antibody (p < 0.05 or p < 0.01) (n = 3; *p < 0.05 or **p < 0.01 vs. the CD4+ group; ^#p < 0.05 or ^##p < 0.01 vs. the MSC+CD4+ group). MSCs, mesenchymal stem cells; rmHGF, recombinant mouse hepatocyte growth factor