Dersimelagon, a novel oral melanocortin 1 receptor agonist, demonstrates disease-modifying effects in preclinical models of systemic sclerosis

Table 2 Scores of melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R) immunostaining of skin sections

IHC (MC1R staining) evaluation	Healthy	dcSSc	lcSSc
Total score	0.83 ± 0.13	0.94 ± 0.11	0.65 ± 0.17
Vessel score	0.70 ± 0.13	0.68 ± 0.08	0.75 ± 0.15
Fibroblast/mononuclear cell score	0.70 ± 0.12	0.89 ± 0.10	0.65 ± 0.17
Epidermis score	0.85 ± 0.17	0.83 ± 0.15	0.60 ± 0.19
Positive rate of MC1R expression^a	24/30 (80%)	40/50 (80%)	9/10 (90%)

Scores are expressed as mean ± SEM (no staining, 0; faint staining, 0.5; light staining, 1; moderate staining, 2; dark staining, 3)
Abbreviations: IHC immunohistochemistry, MC1R melanocortin 1 receptor
^aValues are expressed as an absolute number (%). MC1R positivity was defined as a total score of 0.5 or higher (faint staining)

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