Figure 5.

Impairment of angiogenesis in systemic sclerosis. Genes differentially expressed in microvascular endothelial cells (MVECs) from patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc-MVECs) are grouped according to Table 3. Upward and downward arrows indicate up-regulation and down-regulation, respectively, in SSc-MVECs. Differentially expressed genes that we propose to be critical to the altered angiogenic process in SSc are reported in italics in each sub-group. In SSc, the powerful angiogenic instruction of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) and Fibroblast Growth Factor-2 (FGF2) [34,35] is outstripped by the activity of differentially expressed genes shown as a separate group in the box shaded light grey.