mRNA expression IL-1α, IL-1β, IL-1Ra, IL-1RtI, ER α, ER β, and PR was analyzed by RT-PCR as described in “Materials and Methods.” Representative gel electrographies are shown. mRNA expression IL-1α, IL-1β, IL-1Ra, IL-1RtI, ER α, ER β, and PR was analyzed by RT-PCR as described in “Materials and Methods.” Representative gel electrographies are shown. Each of the six lanes in the right panel represents a tumor of a patient with breast carcinoma. Tumors are aligned in order of increasing histological dedifferentiation from left to right (G1 to G3). Positive (+) and negative (−) controls for each IL-1 family member/sex steroid receptor gene expression are shown in the corresponding left panel. β-Actin was coprobed with every primer pair but is shown here only once. The relative amount of gene expression of each parameter was determined by comparison with the coamplified β-actin and is depicted on an arbitrary scale below each lane. Christian F. Singer et al. Clin Cancer Res 2003;9:4877-4883 ©2003 by American Association for Cancer Research