Figure 1
IL-17A and IL-8 mRNA levels in healthy controls and asthmatics. RNA was isolated from induced sputum of healthy controls (n = 11) and asthmatic patients (n = 33) and real time RT-PCR was performed with β-actin, IL-17A and IL-8 specific primers and with VIC-(β-actin) or FAM-(IL-17A, IL-8) labelled specific probes. Results were quantified by the use of a cDNA plasmid-standard and expressed as the ratio of cDNA copy numbers for IL-17A (A-C) or IL-8 (B-D) divided by the cDNA copy numbers for β-actin multiplied by 104 (A-C) or 101 (B-D). Patients were divided in subgroups according to asthma severity following the reviewed GINA criteria [33] (A, B) and allergic state (allergic state was not known in one patient and two patients with only specific IgE for grass pollen were excluded for the comparison of allergic to non-allergic asthma) (C, D). Open symbols represent patients treated with corticosteroids, closed symbols represent patients without corticosteroid-treatment. Comparisons were performed using the Kruskall-Wallis and Mann-Whitney-U test. The median is indicated with a horizontal line. * = p < 0.05, ** = p < 0.01, *** = p < 0.001 and ns = not significant.