Figure 3.

(a) and (b) Hierarchic clustering heatmap based on the cytokine arrays of autologous A- and LMSC-derived conditioned media from patients with lung adenocarcinoma and hamartochondroma (malignant and benign microenvironments, respectively). The red-yellow and the blue range colors indicate cytokines with high and low average levels, respectively. (c) Protein-protein interaction network generated by STRING database on the 6 upregulated cytokines commonly shared by autologous A- and LMSC when their malignant and benign microenvironments are compared. The number of nodes is proportional to a strict correlation among the proteins analyzed. (d) The analysis of the pathway and process enrichment evaluation derived from the Metascape analysis of the cytokines displayed in (c) showing that IL-1β, IL-3, MCP-1, TNF-α, EGF are all related to lung fibrosis and inflammation.