PTX3 and systemic sclerosis: We selected nine differentially expressed transcripts, including many of those that are functional to the main hypothesis of the present work (KLK9, AF135026; KLK11, AB012917; KLK12, AF135025; IL8, M17017; PLAU, X02419; PTX3, M31166; PLXNB1, AJ011414; DSG2, NM_001943; CTGF, NM_001901); among these were genes exhibiting a significant decrease (KLK9, KLK11, KLK12, PLXNB1, and DSG2) or a significant increase (IL8, PLAU, PTX3, and CTGF) in expression in SSc-MVECs in comparison to N-MVECs.