Elevated transforming growth factor β and mitogen-activated protein kinase pathways mediate fibrotic traits of Dupuytren's disease fibroblasts

Table 2 Evaluation of immunohistochemical staining^a

Patients	TGF-β3	P-Smad2	α-SMA
Control 1	+	++	-
Control 2	++	++	-
Control 3	+	++	-
Control 4	+	-	-
Dupuytren 1	+++	++	++
Dupuytren 2	+++	+++	+++
Dupuytren 3	+++	+++	+++
Dupuytren 4	+++	++	+++

^aEvaluation of immunohistochemical staining was performed on four control and four Dupuytren tissue samples. Positivity was graded on a scale from (-) to (+++), with (-) representing no staining, (+) representing weak staining, (++) representing moderate staining and (+++) representing strong staining. Staining in blood vessels was not included. The scoring was performed on unlabelled samples by a pathologist not involved in the study. Representative images are shown in Figure 1C.

ISSN: 1755-1536