Figure 5  .

Relationship between histological degree of acute inflammation in colon biopsies from IBD patients and mRNA expression of MMPs, TIMP-1, and collagen type III measured by competitive PCR. Scattergrams show the ratio of gene specific transcripts to β-actin transcripts in a logarithmic scale and bars mark the medians of each group. The histological degree of acute inflammation was graded according to Truelove and Richards on a four point scale: no (0), mild (1), moderate (2), and severe (3) inflammation, as outlined in the methods section. Correlation between histological score and mRNA expression was computed using the Spearman rank test and the correlation coefficient r is given in the upper left corner. Statistical significant differences between probes with and without histological confirmed acute inflammation were calculated (*p<0.05, **p<0.01,***p<0.001).