CXCL8 and cystic fibrosis: For example, Verhaeghe et al. showed that there is increased activation of a number of NF-κB driven genes in a 24 week old CF fetus compared to non-CF fetuses of similar age (22 weeks and 23 weeks) [9], whilst others report that in CF and non-CF human fetal tracheal grafts explanted under the skin of immuno-deficient ‘SCID’ mice, there was a significantly increased intraluminal IL-8 content and consistently elevated accumulation of murine leukocytes in the sub-epithelial region in the CF grafts compared to controls [10].