Fig. 4

pEXO-educated monocytes facilitated immune tolerance by mediating T cell functions. A, B Representative histogram of CFSE-labelled CD4⁺ T cell and CD8⁺ T cell proliferation; CFSE-fluorescently labelled autologous T cells co-culture with CD14⁺ monocyte in the presence/absence of 20 μg pEXO treatment in a ratio of 1:1. C pEXO-educated monocyte inhibited autologous T cell proliferation in a direct co-culture model. D Conditioned medium collected from pEXO-educated monocytes had no effect on autologous T cells proliferation. E Flow cytometric analysis showing the increased population of Treg cells (CD4⁺CD25⁺Foxp3⁺) in co-culture of autologous T cells and pEXO-educated monocytes. F The cytokine profile of supernatant of monocyte-T cells co-culture was analyzed by ELISA (IFN-γ, TNF-α, IL-10 and TGF-β). Data are expressed as mean ± SD (n = 4). *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, ****p < 0.0001 compared to the control group