Fig. 2

Comparison of TB-antigen stimulated and unstimulated cytokine responses. The comparison was carried out in patients with active TB (ATB), subjects with latent TB infection (LTBI), and TB non-infected controls (CON). The TB-antigen stimulated cytokine response (a) was calculated by subtracting the cytokine concentration in unstimulated serum from the cytokine concentration in TB-antigen stimulated serum, as detected by the Bio-Plex assay. The unstimulated cytokine response (b) was defined as the cytokine concentration detected in unstimulated serum. The Kruskal–Wallis tests with Dunn’s post-test were used to compare differences among three groups. TB-antigen stimulated (a) and unstimulated (b) cytokines biomarkers were found to differ significantly between groups. The arrow preceding each biomarker name indicates increased or decreased plasma concentrations in the ATB, LTBI, and CON groups