Figure 5.

Heat map analysis of the top genes in our gene panel associated with neuroendocrine (NE) differentiation in primary tumor versus lymph node (LN) metastases. All genes appeared to be differently expressed, with a significant difference in Caveolin 1 (CAV1) (P=0.004; 95% CI of the difference, 0.24 to 1.25), Caveolin 2 (CAV2) (P=0.029; 95% CI of the difference, 0.06 to 1.21), and Annexin A3 (ANXA3) (P=0.035; 95% CI of the difference, 0.06 to 1.63). CAV1 and CAV2 are antagonists for the regulation of several essential cellular processes such as endothelial proliferation, endocytosis, infection, inflammatory response, cellular growth control and apoptosis, while ANXA3 plays a role in the regulation of cellular growth and in signal transduction pathways. All three latter mentioned genes were significantly down-regulated in LN metastases.