Fig. 6

Characterization of secretome in conditioned medium by blood-derived cultures 14 days aged. a Spectrophotometric quantification in the secretome of proteins, DNA double strands, RNA and DNA single strand. b Correlation between in vitro (conditioned medium (MC)), and in vivo tumour microenvironment (interstitial fluid phase of tumours (TM)) in the same patient, **r = 0.8; ***r = 0.9. c of the MS fragment ions by mass spectrometry. c Heatmap shows cytokines in a conditioned medium: row represents a patient and column a cytokine. Color intensity represents the levels of cytokine. Each cytokine in the data matrix is obtained through averaging two values quantified on cytokine-array membranes. The error bars are the sum of standard deviations between two values of pixel intensity for each of the patients. d Plots by repeated measures ANOVA show distributional levels of the cytokines in control and patients’ groups (p < 0.05). e Isoelectrofocusing assay on conditioned medium shows the pH value at which the net surface charge switches its sign. f Comparative levels of methylglyoxal (MG) glycation end products (MEGs) in MC assessed through immunoblotting. g Intracellular localization by immunofluorescence with antibodies against MGEs (green) and p21 (red) in breast cancer cases (reported in Data file S2). Scale bars 10 μm. h Kaplan–Meier curves show a worst prognosis for patients with secretome content high levels of MGEs