Results Despite relatively small group of tested individuals (altogether just 10 young and 16 old people), we were already able to demonstrate highly significant (p<0.001) decreases in the amounts of both μ- and m-calpain in peripheral blood T (CD4 + , CD8 + ) lymphocytes of old individuals as compared to young people (Figure 1 A, B).
These figures show the trend towards a major difference; however, they did not reach statistical significance, probably due to too small numbers of subjects studied.
Weakly significant drop in the amount of calpastatin could only be demonstrated when the levels of this inhibitor were compared between CD8 + CD28 + and CD8 + CD28 - , but not between CD4 + CD28 + and CD4 + CD28 - lymphocytes of young and elderly subjects (Figure 2 C, F).