Figure 1. High Pericyte Coverage Predicts Poor Prognosis of GBM Patients in Response to Chemotherapy.

(A) Representative immunofluorescent images of human primary GBMs with high or low pericyte coverage stained for the tumor pericyte marker α-SMA (green), the endothelial marker CD31 (red), and nuclei with DAPI (blue) (scale bar, 80µm).

(B) Representative immunohistochemical images of human primary GBMs with high or low pericyte coverage. Consecutive paraffin sections were stained for α-SMA or the endothelial marker CD34 (scale bar, 80µm).

(C and D) Kaplan-Meier survival curves show an inverse correlation between pericyte coverage and overall survival (C) or progression-free survival (D) of GBM patients treated with chemotherapy (n = 40). Pericyte coverage was defined as the ratio of α-SMA intensity to the CD34 intensity. The average pericyte coverage of all GBMs was used as the cut-off to divide GBM patients into high and low pericyte coverage groups. (n = 27 for low pericyte coverage, n = 13 for high pericyte coverage; ***, p < 0.001, two-tailed log-rank test).

(E and F) Kaplan-Meier survival curves show no correlation between pericyte coverage and overall survival (E) or progression-free survival (F) of GBM patients without chemotherapy (n = 26). Similar analyses described in (C and D) were performed in a cohort of GBM patients who did not receive any chemotherapy. (n = 18 for low pericyte coverage, n = 8 for high pericyte coverage; two-tailed log-rank test).

(G and H) Linear regression analysis of the correlation between pericyte coverage and progression-free survival of GBM patients treated with chemotherapy (G) (n = 40) or without chemotherapy (H) (n = 26). Pericyte coverage is inversely correlated to progression-free survival of patients treated with chemotherapy (G) (n = 40, p = 0.032, r = −0.341). No correlation is observed between pericyte coverage and progression-free survival of GBM patients without chemotherapy (H) (n = 26, p = 0.28, r = −0.22).

See also Figure S1 and Table S1.