Fig. 8

CD109 expression correlates positively with the levels of IL6Rα, NRF2, phospho-STAT3 and negatively with survival. A Immunohistochemical staining for CD109, IL6Rα, NRF2, phospho-STAT3 and total STAT3 was performed on paraffin-embedded oral SCC tumor tissues and normal adjacent tissues from six patients. Data for three patients are shown. CD109 protein expression was correlated with IL6Rα, NRF2 and pSTAT3 levels using ImageJ and staining intensity was normalized to control samples. Statistical significance was assessed using Pearson’s correlation coefficient (see supplementary Fig. 4 for additional data), Scale bars: 50 μm. B Analysis of HNSCC patient data shows that protein expression of CD109 correlates with that of NRF2. Pearson correlation analysis revealed a significant correlation between CD109 and NRF2 protein expression, as analyzed by GraphPad Prism. C CD109 protein expression correlates with NRF2 pathway activation in Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA). D CD109 mRNA expression also correlates with IL6Rα and NRF2 expression in 523 HNSCC patients from the TCGA Pancancer Atlas database (cBioPortal, https://www.cbioportal.org/) as analyzed by Pearson’s correlation test. E CD109/IL6Rα expression negatively correlates with disease-free and overall survival in HNSCC patients. The 523 patients were stratified into CD109 high/IL6Rα high and CD109 low/IL6Rα low groups, and survival probability was assessed by a log-rank (Mantel-Cox) test