Fig. 2

Decreased number and less IFNα of PBMCs from HCC patients treated with sorafenib. A Gating strategy for human pDCs in peripheral blood. Cells were first gated by FSC-A and SSC-A and doublets were excluded by the FSC-H and FSC-A. Exclusion of dead cells used live/dead staining. The pDCs were defined as HLA-DR⁺ CD123⁺ cells. B Summarized data (A) indicating the percentage of pDCs. Nine donors treated with sorafenib and 16 untreated donors were analyzed in six experiments. Each dot represents an individual donor, and the bars represent the mean ± S.D. *p < 0.05. C PBMCs collected from patients treated or not treated with sorafenib were stimulated with CpG-A for 6 h. Intracellular staining was used to analyze the production of IFNα. D Summarized data (C) indicating the production of IFNα. Eight donors treated with sorafenib and 13 untreated were analyzed in six experiments. Each dot represents an individual donor, and the bars represent the mean ± S.D. *p < 0.05