Figure 3.

Lipocalin 2 (LCN2) expression in blood serum and blood smears withdrawn from HCC patients. (A) LCN2 protein secretion in the blood serum of human HCC patients. α-Fetoprotein (AFP) was shown as a known marker elevated in HCC patients, while α₂-Macroglobulin (α₂M) was used as a loading control. (B) Densitometry of LCN2 results depicted in (A). Statistical analysis was performed by Student t-test and standard deviations below 0.05 were considered significant. (C) Blood smears were stained for LCN2 by routine immunocytochemistry procedure to visualize LCN2 positive cells. Serum from healthy subjects was used as a control. Magnifications presented are 200× and 400×.