Figure 3

Cellular tumor microenvironment of conjunctival melanoma characterized by cell type enrichment analysis using xCell. The tool uses gene expression profiles of 64 immune and stromal cell types to calculate cell type enrichment scores. (A) Heatmap illustrating xCell enrichment scores of 24 of the 64 cell types which were significantly enriched in melanoma compared to normal conjunctiva (p < 0.05, Mann–Whitney U test). 16 cell types were up- and 8 cell types were downregulated in melanoma (see annotation on the right of the heatmap). Each row represents one cell type, each column represents one sample. Rows are ordered according to the fold change of mean enrichment scores for melanoma and normal conjunctiva, respectively. Columns are clustered according to similarities in xCell enrichment scores (see dendrogram). Samples with local recurrence and/or systemic metastasis are labeled (see legend in B, *: local recurrence and systemic metastasis). pDC: plasmacytoid dendritic cell, NKT: natural killer T cell, aDC: activated dendritic cell, DC: dendritic cell, iDC: immature dendritic cells, Th1: type 1 T-helper cells, Tregs: regulatory T cells, CMP: common myeloid progenitor, CLP: common lymphoid progenitor, HSC: hematopoietic stem cell. (B) Boxplots of the xCell immune and stroma score between melanoma and healthy conjunctiva. Each symbol represents one sample and the shape represents the prognostic groups also shown in (C–E). (C–E): boxplots of the xCell immune and stroma score between melanoma with poor and good outcome (C), melanoma with and without local recurrence (D) and with or without systemic metastasis (E), respectively. *p < 0.05, ns: not significant (Mann–Whitney U test).