Pretreatment with GCs enhances rIL-2–stimulated proliferation. Proliferation of T cells preactivated and pretreated with DEX (•) or a corresponding volume of ethanol (○) and reactivated with rIL-2 + PMA. Data points represent the mean ± SEM of four individually performed experiments. Proliferation of unstimulated cells (negative control), 1,023 ± 403; rIL-2 ± PMA-stimulated cells (positive control), 27,076 ± 2,944. *P< .05 versus ethanol-pretreated cells.