Fig. 5: Effect of soluble factors and dimensionality on the CD14⁺ DC conversion and phenotype.

a Frequency of CD14⁺ DCs upon culture of cDC2s in DC medium (n = 5), BLM-conditioned medium (n = 5) or OMC-conditioned medium (n = 4). Each symbol represents an individual donor (Mean±SEM; one-way ANOVA and Tukey’s multiple comparisons tests). b Heatmap of the indicated soluble factors in conditioned media (CM) from 2D-cultured Fibroblasts and BLM cells, as well as from 3D-cultured OSC and OMC, as assessed by Luminex-based bead immunoassay and dedicated PGE2 ELISA. c Frequency of CD14⁺ DCs in cDC2s cultured in DC medium (n = 4) only, in the absence or presence of recombinant human (rh) factors (n = 4). Each symbol represents an individual donor (mean ± SEM; two-way ANOVA and Tukey’s multiple comparisons tests). d Fold change of the percentage of CD14⁺DCs relative to their frequency in DC medium. IL-6 blockade attenuates the cDC2s conversion induced by rhIL-6 (n = 4), BLM-c.m. (n = 5) and OMC-c.m (n = 2). Each symbol represents an individual donor (mean ± SEM; two-tailed paired t tests) (p = 0.0024). e Flow cytometry analysis shows phenotype of cDC2s and CD14⁺ DCs isolated from OMCs and conventional tumour-cDC2 co-cultures (2D). Overlaid histograms for the indicated markers, from one representative experiment out of four, are shown. Colour legends indicate: cDC2s (orange), CD14⁺DCs (green). Statistical significance was annotated as follows: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. Source data are provided as a Source data file.