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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Mar 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2012 Jan 10;129(3):687–693.e1. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2011.12.001

Figure 6. The composite score for steroid response assays in the SR and SS asthma groups prior- (Visit 1) and 30 days post prednisone burst (Visit 3).

Figure 6

The expression levels of the various individual targets used in this study (i.e. MKP-1, IL-8, TNF-alpha fold suppression, IL-8 fold suppression, DEX IC50 to suppress PHA-induced T-cell proliferation, GCR-beta, GCR-alpha/GCR-beta ratio) was rank ordered into quartiles and each value for the selected target was assigned a score of 1 through 4 depending on the quartile the value fit in. A score of 1 was assigned for the least responsive quartile, i.e. highest MKP-1, IL-8 baseline, GCR-beta expression, DEX IC50 for the suppression of the PHA-induced T-cell proliferation; lowest TNF-alpha, IL-8 fold suppression by DEX, lowest GCR-alpha/GCR-beta ratio; and the score of 4 was given for the most responsive quartile. The scores for each target were summed up and a composite score was calculated. Since 7 targets were scored, 7 and 28 were considered the least and the most steroid responsive scores, respectively. The difference in composite score between SR and SS asthma groups was calculated by exact permutation test.