Figure 7.

High expression of TLR7 by malignant adenocarcinoma cells is associated with metastatic gene expression signature.

Kaplan-Meier survival curve for overall survival (OS) for the 154 lung adenocarcinoma patients, divided in two groups according to the stratification of TLR7 expression. Optimal cutoff of 82% was previously determined ¹¹. Patients are divided into TLR7^hi (> 82% expression of TLR7) and TLR7^low group (< 5% TLR7 expression). p-value was determined by log-rank test (A). Gene expression analysis was performed in 12 adenocarcinoma patients including 6 TLR7^hi and 6 TLR7^low, using nanostring technology. Volcano plot comparison of differentially expressed genes between TLR7^hi and TLR7^low group of patients. The horizontal dimension is the variation of median gene expression (log2 (ratio)) between the 2 groups, and the vertical axis represents the Mann-Whitney test p-value between TLR7^hi and TLR7^low patients. In red are represented genes that are over-or under-expressed in TLR7^hi patients, with a fold-change superior to 2 (11 genes among 770 studied) (B). Hierarchical clustering of the 11 differentially expressed genes in TLR7^hi compared to TLR7^low groups. Individual patients are oriented in columns and expression level for each gene is oriented in rows (C). Box plot representation of ICAM1, KRT-19, KRT-7, SCD4, NME1, and P53 gene expression in TLR7^hi and in TLR7^low patients (D). Kaplan-Meier survival curve for overall survival (OS) for adenocarcinoma patients divided in two groups according to the stratification of ICAM1, KRT-19, KRT-7, SCD4, NME1, and P53 gene expression, using online survival analysis software KM plotter. p value was determined by log-rank test (E).