Fig. 1: EGFR correlates with reduced disease-free survival in cervical cancer patients with chemotherapy and EGFR suppression reduces CSCs enrichment in paclitaxel-resistant cervical cancer cells.

a, b Analysis of the relationship between the high expression of EGFR (the mRNA expression of EGFR exceeds the average value of the test samples) and disease-free survival in cervical cancer patients (TCGA, n = 264) (a) and cervical cancer patients with chemotherapy (TCGA, n = 65) (b). c Western blot analysis was performed to detect the protein levels of phosphorylation of EGFR (pEGFR) and EGFR in HeLa229P and HeLa229/TR cells after treated with 0 μM or 5 μM erlotinib for 48 h. d Sphere-formation assay, flow cytometry assay of CD133, and colony-forming assay were performed in HeLa229P and HeLa229/TR cells with or without 5 μM erlotinib treatment for 48 h. e The protein levels of pEGFR and EGFR in SiHaP and SiHa/TR cells with or without 5 μM erlotinib treatment for 48 h were measured by western blot. f The spheres number, the percentage of CD133⁺ cells, and the colonies number in SiHaP and SiHa/TR cells with or without 5 μM erlotinib treatment for 48 h were detected. Data represent mean ± SD from three independent experiments (n = 3). Differences between linked groups were evaluated by two-tailed Student’s t test. ***P < 0.001; ns not significant, P parental, TR paclitaxel-resistant, Erl erlotinib.