Fig. 1.

Comparison of angiogenic capabilities of primary renal NEnC and TEnC. Scheme illustrating the flow of the experimental design. a) Clear cell renal cell carcinoma is confirmed in the patient via biopsy, and affected kidney is surgically removed via nephrectomy. b) Samples of tumor and adjacent normal tissue are collected from the removed kidney immediately after surgery. c) Collected tissue samples are digested and endothelial cells are selected via magnetic bead separation using the surface marker CD31. d) Cross-section of the microfluidic luminal structures created in Collagen Type I gels and lined with patient-derived endothelial cells to create biomimetic blood vessels (i). Cross-sectional view of NEnC biomimetic vessel stained with Texas Red phalloidin (ii). Example of vessels before anti-angiogenic treatment (iii) and after treatment (iv) showing the presence of sprouts. e) Cross-sectional view of luminal structure for a NEnC and TEnC vessel from patient 28 (P28) showing phalloidin-stained endothelial cells in red and rat tail collagen type-1 in blue visualized through Second Harmonic Imaging (left). Bright field pictures of NEnC and TEnC vessels for patient 38 (P38) and 31 (P31) (center and right, respectively). f) Number of sprouts generated per area in NEnCs and TEnCs vessels for different patient samples. (**p = ∙049 for patient 34, and ****p < ∙001 for the rest of the patients, as calculated via two-way ANOVA and Sidak's correction for multiple comparisons). Graphs represent mean ± SEM. At least lumens were used, distributed in 3 independent experiments.