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. 2018 Apr 17;6:41. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2018.00041

Figure 2.

Figure 2

Non-sporadic induction of AXL and cKIT expression by combinatorial microenvironments. (A,B) Unsupervised hierarchical clustering of mRNA expression levels of genes in the 184 progression series corresponding the gene products that were printed on MEMA: (A) microenvironment proteins and (B) their known receptors. (C) mRNA expression level of AXL and cKIT in the184 progression. (D) Diagram of the MicroEnvironment MicroArray (MEMA) experimental design. MEMAs are printed on microscope slides coated with polyacrylamide (PA) gel. 228 unique extracellular microenvironments with 5–20 replicate spots are printed on one slide. Cells are cultured on the arrays and grown 48 h before fixing. AXL and cKIT are stained for immunofluorescence imaging, and image analysis is used to obtain single cell expression data in discrete microenvironment contexts. (E) Unsupervised hierarchical clustering of AXL expression z-scores as a function of microenvironment in the 184 progression series. Non-sporadic clustering of AXL expression by major ECM component of microenvironment was detected. (F) Scatter plot representation of AXL and cKIT expression in single cells, as a function of ECM components (LAM1, COL4, and COL1) in the 184 progression series.