Figure 1.

TLR2 correlates with poor prognosis in BC patients, and its deletion hinders HER2-driven mammary carcinogenesis and affects CSCs (a, b) Kaplan–Meier plots displaying (a) RFS and (b) OS in BC patients from all the datasets included in the KMPlotter website, stratified according to TLR2 mRNA expression (N = 4929 and N = 1728 in A and B, respectively). (c) Tumor-free survival, (d) OS, (e) mean tumor multiplicity of neuT-TLR2^WT (N = 21) and neuT-TLR2^KO (N = 22) mice. (f) Mean tumor volume of C57Bl6 mice injected orthotopically with 1 x 10⁴ or 1 x 10⁵ cells dissociated from tumors explanted from 4 neuT-TLR2^WT (solid lines) or 4 neuT-TLR2^KO (dashed lines) mice. (g-i) FACS analysis of (g) Aldefluor⁺ (h) CD44⁺ CD24⁻ and (i) Sca1⁺ CSCs in tumors explanted from neuT-TLR2^WT or neuT-TLR2^KO mice. Representative density plots are shown. Graphs show mean ± SEM of the percentage of CSCs from among CD45⁻ cells (each dot represents a mouse). N = 6 per group. (l) Sphere-generating ability (number of tumorspheres generated every 10³ plated cells) of cells dissociated from the tumors of neuT-TLR2^WT (N = 6) and neuT-TLR2^KO (N = 10) mice. Results come from at least 3 independent experiments. (c-d) Log-rank Mantel-Cox, (e) Mann Whitney, and (g-j) unpaired Student’s t tests with Welch’s correction.