Expression of interleukin-22/STAT3 signaling pathway in ulcerative colitis and related carcinogenesis

Figure 2 Statistical evaluation of interleukin-22 and its related proteins in human colonic biopsy specimens from the controls and patients with inactive, mild-moderate, and severe ulcerative colitis. The average integrated optical density (IOD) was obtained by analyzing five random fields for each slide, which were evaluated using Image-Pro Plus software (v. 5.0), for the immunohistochemistry staining of interleukin (IL)-22 (A), IL-23 (B), IL-22R1 (C), and p-STAT3 (S727) (D) in human colonic biopsy specimens. The expression levels of IL-22 (A), IL-23 (B), IL-22R1 (C), and p-STAT3 (D) were positively correlated with colitis severity.