Figure 6: Matriptase and c-Met expression are correlated in human invasive ductal carcinomas.

Representative staining of serial sections of invasive ductal carcinoma (a) using a mouse monoclonal anti-matriptase antibody and a goat anti-c-Met antibody. Upper panels: carcinoma with matriptase and c-Met co-expression. Lower panels: carcinoma negative for both matriptase and c-Met. Primary antibodies were substituted with non-immune control IgG as negative controls. (b) Expression of matriptase and c-Met in 153 human invasive ductal carcinomas. Bars depict the frequency of samples expressing matriptase and c-Met (134/153), samples that express neither matriptase nor c-Met (11/153), samples that express only matriptase (7/153) and samples that express c-Met only as indicated (1/153). The overall comparison of groups showed a highly significant correlation between c-Met and matriptase expression: Tetrachoric Rho=0.95 (P<0.001). (c) Representative staining of serial sections of invasive ductal carcinoma using rabbit anti-matriptase, rabbit anti-c-Met and rabbit anti-phospho-c-Met. Matriptase, c-Met and phospho-c-Met (brown staining, arrow heads) are detected in the epithelia-derived cancer cells (indicated with ‘E’) with no significant staining in the mesenchymal/stromal compartments (indicated with ‘S’). Tissues were counterstained with haematoxylin (blue/grey). Both matriptase and c-Met are primarily localized on cell surfaces and in the cytoplasm and display highly similar expression patterns. Scale bars, 100 μm.