Potency and efficacy of cortisol, MPA and progesterone as determined by the dose response curves.

IC50 - concentration at which 50% of cytokine response is inhibited; EC50 - concentration at which 50% of cytokine response is induced; # - MPA inhibited the expression of TNFα, IL-1ra, IL-13 and GM-CSF with the same potency as cortisol, which was different to progesterone (p value = 0.0571); * - Progesterone, but not MPA or cortisol, induced the expression of IP-10 (p value = 0.0571). NA - no activity for ligands was determined. Dose-response curves were generated using GraphPad Prism 5 (nonlinear regression curve; n = 4). The efficacy was calculated by subtracting the percentage of cytokine expression of the highest concentration of hormone from the BCG only stimulated (100%, no hormone present) response.