Fig. 2: Copper chelation promotes an immune-permissive tumor microenvironment.

a Experimental design and dosing strategy of Th-MYCN model with peripheral blood and tumors obtained after 1 week of treatment. Schematic created in BioRender. Vittorio, O. (2024). BioRender.com/c53h577. b Cytokine levels in sera and tumoral lysates obtained from control and TEPA-treated mice. Serum data (excluding TGF-β) are presented as mean ± SEM, n = 4 (both groups) biological replicates, one independent experiment. Tumor microenvironment (TME) data (excluding TGF-β) are presented as mean ± SEM, n = 10 (Control) and n = 6 (TEPA) biological replicates, one independent experiment. TGF-β serum and TME data are presented as mean ± SEM, n = 7 (both groups) biological replicates, two independent experiments. Significance was calculated using a two-tailed Mann–Whitney U test with p-values displayed in the figure. c Flow cytometric analysis of myeloid subset frequencies from tumors after 1 week of treatment. Data are presented as mean ± SEM, n = 3 (both groups) biological replicates, one independent experiment. Significance was calculated using a two-tailed t-test with Welch’s correction with p-value displayed in the figure. d Representative flow cytometry plots of CD11b⁺Ly6G⁺ neutrophil frequency of tumors plotted in (c). e Count and percentage of circulating neutrophils obtained from control and TEPA-treated mice. Data are presented as mean ± SEM, n = 4 (both groups) biological replicates, one independent experiment. Significance was calculated using a two-tailed Mann–Whitney U test with p-values displayed in the figure. Abbreviations: n.d. no data available, p.o. orally, TME tumor microenvironment. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.