Fig. 3: Live bacteria, especially K. pneumoniae, are enriched in tumour tissues of patients with HCC.
a, Top: representative images of bacterial culture of liver tissues from patient with LC under anaerobic and aerobic conditions. N = 15 biologically independent samples. From left to right and top to bottom, the culture plates are blood agar plates, chocolate blood agar plates, MacConkey agar plates and Columbia blood agar plates, respectively. Bottom: Cy3-conjugated EUB338 probe FISH detection, LPS and LTA IHC staining of liver tissues from patient with LC (n = 3 independent experiments with similar results). b, Top: representative images of bacterial culture of tumour tissues from patient with HCC under anaerobic and aerobic conditions. N = 54 biologically independent samples. From left to right and top to bottom, the culture plates are blood agar plates, chocolate blood agar plates, MacConkey agar plates and Columbia blood agar plates, respectively. Bottom: Cy3-conjugated EUB338 probe FISH detection, LPS and LTA IHC staining of HCC patient liver tissues (n = 3 independent experiments with similar results). c, Stacked bar plot of relative abundance of culturable bacterial strains from liver tissues from individuals with LC or with HCC as determined by microbial mass spectrometry identification. d, Stacked bar plot of relative abundance at genus level of bacteria from liver tissues from patients with LC or HCC as detected by 16S rRNA sequencing. N = 11 (LC), 35 (HCC). e, Absolute number of K. pneumoniae in liver tissues from patient with LC and HCC as detected by qPCR. n = 10 biologically independent samples. f, Representative images of Cy3-conjugated K. pneumoniae probe FISH detection in liver tissues from patient with LC (top) and HCC (bottom). n = 10 biologically independent samples. In f, data are presented as mean ± s.e.m. Each data point in bar plots represents one participant. Statistical significance was calculated using Student’s t-test.
