Fig. 3

A–D Baseline inflammatory and peripheral blood CD4^pos subpopulations associated with remission achievement under CTLA4-Ig treatment in RA. A Spearman correlation test between IL-6, IL-10, TGFβ serum concentrations, CD4^pos cell subpopulation rates, STAT3, and STAT5 expression in CD4^pos cells in the whole RA cohort with DAS and CDAI at baseline and at 6 months of follow-up of treatment with CTLA4-Ig. Each number indicates the coefficient of the Spearman correlation test. “*” indicates correlations with p ≤ 0.05 from the Spearman test. B IL-6, TGF-β, and IL-10 serum levels of RA patients at study entry based on the achievement of DAS- and CDAI-defined remission after 6 months of follow-up of CTLA4-Ig treatment in the whole RA cohort and healthy controls. C Peripheral blood CD4^posCD25^posFoxP3^pos and CD4^posCD25^posCD127^neg cell percentage at study entry based on the achievement of DAS- and CDAI-defined remission after 6 months of follow-up of CTLA4-Ig treatment in the whole RA cohort and healthy controls. D STAT3 and STAT5 expression in peripheral blood-derived CD4^pos cells of RA patients at study entry based on the achievement of DAS- and CDAI-defined remission after 6 months of follow-up of CTLA4-Ig treatment in the whole RA cohort and healthy controls. B–D All comparisons between groups were done using the Mann–Whitney U test. HC, healthy controls; IL, interleukin; TGFβ, transforming growth factor beta; CD, cluster designation; RA, rheumatoid arthritis