Extended Data Fig. 6: LIF blockade alleviates chemoresistance directly by affecting cancer cell differentiation.
From: Targeting LIF-mediated paracrine interaction for pancreatic cancer therapy and monitoring
a, Representative histological images showing different tumour differentiation status. b–d, Flow cytometry analysis of the total cell count (b) and relative frequency (c) of tumour-initiating cell populations in individual tumours, and the gating strategy exemplified with representative contour plots (d). e, Multiplex immunofluorescence staining of nuclear proteins ZEB1 (as a mesenchymal cell marker) and PDX1 (as the PCC marker) and quantification of mesenchymal cancer cell frequency as the fraction of ZEB1+PDX1+DAPI+ cancer cells over PDX1+DAPI+ total cancer cells. f, Sphere formation assays on primary PCCs with or without Lifr deficiency in response to low concentration (3 nM) Gem treatment. n = 9 per condition. g–i, Histological characterization of tumour tissues from the maintenance study (in Fig. 4c–e) and representative images of AB-PAS staining for well-differentiated cancer cells with acidic and neutral mucin stained in blue and magenta, respectively (g), multiplex immunofluorescence of ZEB1 and PDX1 proteins for the mesenchymal cancer cell frequency quantification and EMT (h), and of cleaved caspase-3 immunohistochemistry analysis for apoptosis (i). Scale bars: black, white, 300 µm; blue, 100 µm; yellow, 50 µm. Statistical significance was determined by two-tailed unpaired Student’s t-test.
