Figure 2.

Neutrophils isolated from rheumatoid arthritis-interstitial lung disease (RA-ILD) patients release neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) expressing tissue factor (TF). (A) Fluorescence microscopy images showing TF staining (blue, DAPI; green, TF; original magnification, 400×; optical zoom, 3x) in neutrophils collected from RA-ILD patients. A representative example of 9 independent experiments is shown. (B) Thrombin anti-thrombin (TAT) levels in ex vivo-isolated NET structures from RA-ILD patients, compared to healthy individuals (HI) (n = 9 subjects per group). (C) TF mRNA expression in control neutrophils treated with RA-ILD serum (RA-ILD S), as assessed by real-time qPCR (n = 9 subjects per group). For (B) data are shown as mean ± SD, Mann-Whitney U test (two-tailed). For (C) data are shown as mean ± SD, Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed rank test (two-tailed). All conditions were compared to HI/Untreated. Statistically significant: P < 0.05.