Figure 1.

Morphology of CAFs isolated from tumor tissues of patients with HCC and inhibition of immune cells infiltrating the tumor. (A) Schematic depicting the isolation procedure of CAFs from tumor tissues of patients with HCC. (B) Phase contrast microscope images of isolated CAFs at 1, 3, and 5 days after culture. Images were captured at 20× magnification. (C) Immunohistochemical staining of tumor tissues of patients with HCC using glypican3, Ki-67, vimentin, CD38, CD68, CD15, CD3, CD20, and PD-L1 antibodies as well as H&E and Masson's trichrome stains. Vimentin and Masson's trichrome staining were positive in CAFs in the peri-tumor and some clusters within the intra-tumor tissues (black arrowheads). Immune cells positive for CD38⁺, CD68⁺, CD15⁺, CD3⁺, CD20⁺, and PD-L1⁺ were located in close proximity to fibroblast clusters (red arrowheads). (D) Quantification of vimentin⁺ cells correlated with CD68⁺ or CD3⁺ cells. All means were statistically analyzed. CAF, cancer-associated fibroblast; HCC, hepatocellular carcinoma; H&E, hematoxylin and eosin; NT, non-tumor; T, tumor.