Monocyte hepcidin mRNA expression and correlation to serum IL-6 and ferritin levels in ACD patients. (A) Freshly isolated blood monocytes from control (n = 13) and ACD (n = 12) patients were subjected to RNA preparation, followed by reverse transcription and quantitative TaqMan PCR. Specific values of target genes were normalized to those of beta-actin. Data are depicted as lower quartile, median and upper quartile (boxes), and minimum/maximum ranges (whiskers; *P < .05, monocytes from control patients vs monocytes from ACD patients by Student t test). (B) Correlation between monocyte hepcidin mRNA and IL-6 (R = −0.892, P = .001) in ACD patients as determined by Spearman Rank correlation technique. The regression line and the 95% confidence interval are plotted. (C) Correlation between monocyte hepcidin mRNA and serum ferritin (R = −0.027, P = .937) in ACD patients as determined by Spearman Rank correlation technique. The regression line and the 95% confidence interval are plotted.