Figure 5.

Cross-comparison of LAPC9 versus BM18 suggests stromal gene Tenascin C expression being associated with advanced PCa and regulated by androgen levels. (A) Heatmap represents the differential expression analysis of the top 100 most variable genes from the mouse transcriptome of LAPC9 intact tumors compared to BM18 intact tumors and (B) of LAPC9 castrated tumors compared to BM18 castrated tumors. (A) Subset of genes in LAPC9 samples have zero counts, leading to the same z-score, while the same genes are highly expressed in BM18 samples. (C) Tnc RNA expression (log₂CMP counts) in the stroma transcriptome. Log_FC (fold change) enrichment of Tnc in LAPC9 over BM18 is indicated. Ordinary two-way ANOVA with Tukey’s multiple comparison correction was performed, p ˂ 0.05 (*) and p ˂ 0.0001 (****). (D) Tenascin protein expression and stromal specificity assessed by immunohistochemistry in LAPC9 and BM18 tumors, both at the intact and castrated states. Scale bars: 20 μm. (E) Tenascin protein (indicated in red) colocalization with stromal markers, smooth muscle actin (αSMA, green) and collagen type I (gray) assessed by immunofluorescence in LAPC9 and BM18 tumors, both at the intact and castrated states. DAPI marks the nuclei. Scale bars: 50 μm.