Figure 6.

Effects of chemoradiotherapy on ACE2, TMPRSS2, and CTSL expression. Expression of ACE2 (left), TMPRSS2 (middle), and CTSL (right) in rectal tissue before and after chemoradiotherapy with 50 Gy in 25 fractions over 5 weeks plus capecitabine 825 mg/m² twice daily during radiotherapy from the GSE15781 data set (n = 9 patients). The probe intensity for each gene was log₂ transformed and visualised for each treatment group to present normalized gene expression values. Paired t-tests were performed between time points and significant differential expression between groups was labelled. The numbers denote each of the 9 individual patient’s data points. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01 between baseline and chemotherapy groups.