FIGURE 7.

The paracrine action of IL11 promotes the expression of ICAM‐1 and ITGA5 in CAFs. (A) The bar plot shows the first five most significant IL11‐related pathways resulting from Reactome pathway analysis. The number of the genes included in each pathway is displayed along the x‐axis, while the different Reactome pathways are shown along the y‐axis. The color bar gradient indicates the range of significance (BH p‐adjusted values) of each pathway. (B) mRNA expression of ICAM‐1 and ITGA5 evaluated by real‐time PCR in CAFs exposed for 18 h to vehicle (−), 20 ng/ml IL11, or conditioned medium (CM) collected from BCAHC‐1 cells previously treated with vehicle, 100 nM E2 or 10 nM insulin (Ins). (C) Protein levels of ICAM‐1 and ITGA5 evaluated by immunoblotting in CAFs exposed for 18 h to conditioned medium (CM) collected from BCAHC‐1 cells previously treated with vehicle, 100 nM E2, or 10 nM insulin (Ins), in the presence or absence of 200 ng/ml IL11 neutralizing‐antibody (Ab‐IL11). (D) Protein levels of ICAM‐1 and ITGA5 in CAFs exposed to vehicle or 20 ng/ml IL11 for 18 h in the presence or absence of 200 ng/ml Ab‐IL11. Side panels show densitometric analysis of the blots normalized to β‐actin. * indicates p < 0.05 for cells exposed to treatments versus vehicle (−)

Abbreviations: CAF, cancer‐associated fibroblasts; IL11, interleukin 11; PCR, polymerase chain reaction.