ITGB8 and systemic sclerosis: To investigate whether siDSG2-N-MVECs and SSc-MVECs shared alterations of the actin-cytoskeleton genes down-regulated by siDSG2, we assessed by RT-PCR the expression of MACF1, DIAPH1, DIAPH2, ARPC3, RAC2, CDH5 and ITGB8 genes in three SSc-MVEC lines (figure 6A).