Figure 4 | Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy

Figure 4

From: Analyses of publicly available genomics resources define FGF-2-expressing bladder carcinomas as EMT-prone, proliferative tumors with low mutation rates and high expression of CTLA-4, PD-1 and PD-L1

Figure 4

FGF-2 expression in invasive bladder carcinomas in the TCGA database correlates with the expression of Akt3 and with a shift in the splicing of FGFR-2 toward the Exon 9-containing IIIc isoform. (a) Alternative splicing of FGFR-2. The extracellular domain of FGFR-2 contains three Ig-like loops. The third loop is encoded by exon 7 and the mutually exclusive exons 8 and 9. Although the inclusion of exon 8 gives rise to the IIIb isoform, its exclusion gives rise to the IIIc isoform. The IIIb isoform is expressed in epithelial cells and it is not recognized by FGF-2, whereas the IIIc isoform is expressed in mesenchymal cells and invasive and metastatic cancer cells and it is recognized by FGF-2. (b) Heatmap showing the expression of FGF-2, Akt3 and exons 7, 8 and 9 of FGFR-2 in 407 invasive bladder carcinomas in the TCGA data set. (c) Correlation between the expression of Akt3 and FGF-2 in the same tumors. (d) Ratio of expression of FGFR-2 IIIc to IIIb in invasive bladder carcinomas expressing high and low levels of Akt3. (e) Ratio of expression of FGFR-2 IIIc to IIIb in invasive bladder carcinomas expressing high and low levels of FGF-2. FGF-2, fibroblast growth factor 2; TCGA, the cancer genome atlas.

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