Fig. 3.

Sialic acid levels are elevated in the cancer cell glycocalyx and stroma within high fibrosis regions of aggressive breast tumors. A. Representative IF images of a TN tumor in high and low fibrosis regions stained with DAPI, SNA lectin, pan-CK, and SMA. Scale bar is 100 μm. B-C. Quantification of SNA-positive area in low and high fibrosis regions in B. ER+ and C. HER2+ and TN tumors. D. Quantification of SNA intensity in cancer cell and stromal regions. E. Representative IF images of SNA staining of tumor edge and core regions. The 5 μm thick region bounded by the green lines represents the tumor edge. DAPI and CK inserts are from the same image. Scale bar is 100 μm. F. Quantification of SNA intensity in tumor core and edge regions. G. Heatmap showing the expression of gene signatures in RNAseq data from breast tumors from TCGA. Patients were ordered by the fibrosis signature. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)