Major Lymphocyte Populations
There were no differences in the relative percentage of CD3+, CD4+ or CD8+ T cells between groups. Among the subpopulations of CD4+ T cells, only the central memory compartment was significantly different between groups, being expanded in the PR group, compared with the other two. More differences were observed in the subpopulations of CD8+ T cells. Similar to what we observed within CD4+ T cells, patients in PR showed an increased central memory compartment, and a concomitant reduction in the percentage of naïve CD8+ cells, when compared with the other groups. Meanwhile, patients with Act-SLE presented a decreased percentage of CD8+ effector memory cells. The percentages of the subpopulations analyzed and the p values for the comparisons are described in Table 3.