Fig. 2: High-resolution protein imaging confirms selective expression of CLDN4 on high-grade PanINs and cancerous ducts. | Nature Communications

Fig. 2: High-resolution protein imaging confirms selective expression of CLDN4 on high-grade PanINs and cancerous ducts.

From: Spatial transcriptomic analysis drives PET imaging of tight junction protein expression in pancreatic cancer theranostics

Fig. 2

A High resolution CLDN4 immunohistochemistry (IHC) sections. B Ki67 quantification on high-grade pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN) vs low-grade PanIN/acinar-to-ductal metaplasia (ADM), C High-resolution hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) imaging compared with mRNA expression of CLDN4, TFF1, S100P and CEACAM5 in the same region validates similar expression. Yellow arrows indicate small differences in low-grade lesions. D Illustrated summary of the changes in CLDN4 expression with disease and the expected impact on the ability of peptides to target the protein. In healthy tissue, CLDN4 and adherens junction proteins form a tight cell-cell junction and are not accessible to imaging ligands. In diseased tissue the cell-cell junctions are compromised, displaying CLDN4 proteins to targeted imaging ligands. Created with BioRender.com. Significance analyzed with a two-sided unpaired t-test, * = p < 0.05 (p = 0.0196) in (B) and the whiskers represent standard deviation. A, B, C were based on a sample replicate of n = 7.

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