Zhou L, et al. - In this study including 186 unrelated patients with acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and 180 healthy controls, researchers evaluated the link between the expression levels of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) family genes mRNA and of inflammatory markers relevant to COPD pathogenesis. They found that NF-κB2 over-expression was related to interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-8 and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) levels. They also observed an association of c-REL over-expression with COX-2 level. Findings revealed that over-expression of both NF-κB2 and c-REL showed association with COPD.