Figure 1.

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) serum significantly inhibits proliferation of dermal lymphatic microvascular endothelial cells (LMVECs). Cell viability was measured by the WST-1 colorimetric assay after challenging the LMVECs for 48 h with serum from healthy controls (n = 8) or from patients with early diffuse cutaneous SSc (n = 8). Stimulation with pro-lymphangiogenic recombinant human (rh) vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-C served as a positive control. Cell proliferation in the presence of EGM-2-MV complete medium was set as 100%; all results are normalized to this value. Data are mean ± standard error of the mean (SEM) of three independent experiments, performed in triplicate with each one of the three LMVEC lines. * p < 0.001 vs. healthy serum (Tukey’s test).