Figure 2.

CCL18 mRNA is up-regulated in MF skin and correlated with expression of the proliferation marker Ki-67 in CTCL. A: Real-time quantitative PCR analysis of chemokine expression in healthy skin (n = 7), lesional skin from patients with PEP (n = 4), skin from patients in MF patch or plaque stage (n = 3), and MF tumor lesions (n = 5) was performed. Values were normalized to the housekeeping gene HPRT, and expression levels of the chemokines are given as the percentage of the mean expression in healthy skin. Bars represent mean ± SD. The P value was determined between the values of diseased and healthy skin by Student's t-test. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.005. B: Concentration of CCL18 mRNA correlated with the expression rate of the proliferation marker Ki-67 in MF patch and MF tumor lesions (P = 0.007). C: Concentration of CCL18 mRNA did not correlate with the density of the cellular infiltrate in PEP, MF patch, and MF tumor lesions (P = 0.14). R² indicates coefficient of determination, with 1 indicating complete correlation and 0 indicating no correlation; significance was tested by Spearman's rank correlation.