Fig. 2.

Ethanol itself might play a vital role in the incidence and metastasis of most alcohol-related CRC. (A) Pearson's chi-squared (χ²) test was used to analyse the relationship between alcohol intake and risk of CRC metastasis. “nmCRC” indicates non-metastatic CRC, and “mCRC” indicates metastatic CRC. (B) Unpaired Student's t-test was used to analyse the difference in the average alcohol intake between patients with and without tumour metastasis. (C) Pearson's chi-squared (χ²) test was used to analyse the relationship between flushing syndrome and risk of CRC metastasis. “FS” indicates patients with flushing syndrome, and “nFS” indicates the absence of flushing syndrome. (D) Unpaired Student's t-test was used to analyse the difference in the average alcohol intake between CRC patients with and without flushing syndrome. (E) Orthotopic xenograft colorectal cancer mouse model. (F) ADH1C and ADH1B expression in CRC and normal-matched tissues from our laboratory. The data were normalized to GAPDH and are expressed as the means ± SEMs. (G) ALDH2, ALDH1A1 and ALDH1B1 expression in CRC and normal-matched tissues from our laboratory. The data were normalized to GAPDH and are expressed as the means ± SEMs. (H) ADH1C and ADH1B expression in CRC and normal-matched tissues from the GEO GSE87211 datasets. The data were normalized to GAPDH and are expressed as the means ± SEMs. (I) ALDH2, ALDH1A1 and ALDH1B1 expression in CRC and normal-matched tissues from the GEO GSE87211 datasets. The data were normalized to GAPDH and are expressed as the means ± SEMs.