Fig. 2.

B cells and BAFF⁺ and Ki67⁺ B cells were increased in patients with CF. The number of a lymphoid follicles, b B cells, c BAFF⁺ and d Ki67⁺ B cells were quantified in lung tissue from CF subjects (n = 27) and normal controls (n = 10). There was significant increase in LFs, B cells identified by CD20 staining, BAFF⁺ and Ki67⁺ B cells in subjects with CF compared to controls. B cells, BAFF⁺ B cells and lymphoid follicles (LFs) with organized germinal centers strongly correlated with total LFs. There was a significant correlation between the number of lymphoid follicles and e CD20-positive B cells (R² = 0.411, p = 0.006), f BAFF-positive B cells (R² = 0.498, p < 0.0001) and g LFs with organized germinal centers (R² = 0.497, p < 0.0001) in patients with CF. This is a quantitative assessment of the data demonstrated in the representative images in Fig. 1. Mann-Whitney U test was used to perform the statistical analysis (a-d). Box plots show the median values and 25th and 75th percentiles, and error bars show the 10th and 90th percentiles. Squares in (a) indicate outliers. Correlation coefficients were calculated using the Pearson rank method. A total of 27 CF subjects were analyzed. *p ≤ 0.05; **p ≤ 0.001; ***p ≤ 0.0001, CF versus normal controls