Effect of rapamycin on the production of IL-2 by activated T cells.

Human peripheral blood T cells (2 × 10⁶/mL) were stimulated with either plate-bound αCD3 (200 ng/mL) plus soluble αCD28 (100 ng/mL) (A), or with PMA (10 ng/mL) plus αCD28 (B), or with PMA plus ionomycin (1 μg/mL) (C) for 24 hours at 37°C. For drug treatment, T cells were pretreated for 1 hour with either CsA or rapamycin (Rap). Supernatants were collected for IL-2 assay as described in “Materials and methods.” Four different donors were used in this assay.