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The healthy control group consisted of six male and six female subjects (median age 35 years, range 27 to 49 years) who had no history of allergic diseases and negative skin tests. All subjects were nonsmokers, were not exposed to allergens and had not had exacerbations of symptoms or respiratory tract infections for at least two weeks before the investigation. Monoclonal antibodies Phycoerythrin (PE)-conjugated antihuman IL-10 monoclonal antibody (mAb), JES3-19F1 (rat immunoglobulin [Ig]G2a) and PE-isotype control rat IgG2a were purchased from PharMingen (USA). Positive staining could be inhibited by preincubation with 25 pg/mL recombinant human IL-10 (PharMingen, USA) or with excessive concentrations (50 pg/mL) of fluorescent-unla-belled antihuman IL-10 mAb. In nonpermeabilized cells, positive staining for IL-10 decreased by 31.5% of the paired sample with permeabilization, showing that approximately 70% of the signal may be the intracellular origin. Fluorescent isothiocyanate-conju-gated anti-CD4 mAb, RPA-T4 (mouse IgG^ kappa) or anti-CD8 mAb, RPA-T8 (mouse IgG^ kappa) and CyChrome (PharMingen, USA)-conjugated anti-CD3 mAb, HIT3a (mouse IgG2a, kappa) were used for identifying T cell subsets.