Figure 1

Correlation of GRHL2 expression with EMT score, molecular subtype and EMT phenotype.

(a) The median generic EMT score (blue) and the median GRHL2 expression (red) of different cancer types from the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE). EMT score nearer to +1.0 is more mesenchymal-like (Mes), whereas an EMT score nearer to −1.0 is more epithelial-like (Epi). Correlation between the two variables was checked by Spearman’s correlation test (n = 807). (b) The mRNA expression of GRHL2 (mean ± SEM) in EOC tumours of five molecular subtypes: EpiA, EpiB, Mes, StemA and StemB. The Mes subgroup showed significant lower expression, based on unpaired t-tests. **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001; ****p < 0.0001. (c) Kaplan-Meier curves showing overall survival (% survival) in patients with GRHL2-high (red) and GRHL2-low (blue) tumours using a cutoff gene expression level matched with the protein expression in cell lines. (d) The normalized mRNA expression of GRHL2 (2^−∆Ct), as measured by RT-qPCR in 44 archived EOC samples classified into the five molecular subtypes (mean ± SEM). Unpaired t-tests were performed. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01. (e) The normalized mRNA expression of GRHL2 (2^−∆Ct) (duplicates) measured by RT-qPCR in the SGOCL collection of EOC cell lines (n = 42) classified into four phenotypes: Epithelial, Intermediate E, Intermediate M and Mesenchymal. Unpaired t-tests were performed. **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. (f) Western blots showing the protein expression of GRHL2, E-cadherin and GAPDH in 38 EOC cell lines representing the four phenotypes. Full-length blots are presented in Supplementary Fig. S10.