Figure 1.

GPC6 is overexpressed in TIL+ early stage ovarian cancer and its expression correlates positively with CD8+ T-lymphocyte infiltration. (a) GPC6 was overexpressed in the TIL+ ovarian cancer sample as visualized by fluorescent ADDER (band indicated by an arrow). Lane (+) displays the gene expression profile of the TIL+ sample generated by the corresponding Differential Display primer set; lane (−) displays the expression profile of the TIL− sample and lane (C) displays the combined profile of equal amount of PCR products of both samples. Genes expressed equally in both samples appear as yellow bands in lane (C). (b) The expression of GPC6 was quantified by qPCR in samples derived from 38 stage I-II ovarian cancer patients. The relative expression of GPC6 was plotted along with the respective CD8A expression levels after normalization to b-actin. A pooled mix of equal amounts of all samples served as calibrator (Cal). (c) Pearson correlation coefficient of CD8A-GPC6 expression levels. The correlation is significant (p = 0.0067). (d) The relative expression of GPC6 in 7 ovarian cancer cell lines was estimated by qPCR (normalized to b-actin). (e-f) Immunohistochemistry of GPC6 expression in representative early stage ovarian tumor samples. (e) Negative expression of GPC6 protein in the tumor sample 314 with low mRNA levels of the respective gene (see 1(b)). (f) Strong expression of the GPC6 protein in the 408 sample with also high mRNA levels (see 1(b)). Magnification (e-f): ×400. Columns: mean, bars: SEM.