Rottlerin strongly induced upregulated expression COX1/PTGS1, MMP3 and PTX3 but upregulated expression of COX2/PTGS2 was observed only in rottlerin-treated SSc fibroblasts and upregulated SocS2 expression only in rottlerin-treated normal fibroblasts The expression patterns of transcripts for these genes in control and PKC- δ-inhibited normal and SSc fibroblasts, as well as for those encoding type I and type III collagen were examined by real time RT-PCR. Here, PTX3 is linked to systemic sclerosis.