Fig. 3

Functional assay of VCAM-1-binding effects in vitro. a Cell-bound NAT (black bars) and VCAM-1 (white bars) MFI values after incubation of different numbers of cells comparable to those in vivo in blood or serum (5 or 1000/μl, respectively) with and without (NO) different NAT concentrations, up to maximally loaded cells [MAX] with 100 % NAT saturation. b Incubation of different numbers of cells with NAT concentrations comparable to those in vivo in blood or serum (10 ng/ml and 10 μg/ml, respectively). c Incubation of 5 or 1000 cells/μl with different dilutions of CSF or serum of NAT-treated patients with MS. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. d Correlation of cell-bound NAT with the ratio of free NAT concentration-to-cell count in CSF. Values from NAT-treated patients with MS (black circle) who were partly reevaluated after 1 year (black square). e Mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) of cell-bound NAT after (from left to right) separation, co-cultivation but separated by a permeable membrane, or free co-cultivation of NAT-preloaded (black bars) and non-loaded (white bars) CSFE-marked cells for 24 h. The conditions and results are illustrated below the figure