Typing of pancreatic cancer-associated fibroblasts identifies different subpopulations

Table 1 Patient and tumour characteristics

Characteristics		IHC and IF cohort	ISH cohort
Number	n	8	211
Age	Mean (yr)	67.0	67.9
	(range)	(46.7-75.9)	(46.7-80.9)
Sex	Female/male	5/3	13/8
Tumour differentiation grade
Well differentiated (G1)	n	0	0
Moderately differentiated (G2)	n	8	19
Poorly differentiated (G3)	n	0	2
T Stage2	T1/T2/T3/T4	0/0/8/0	0/0/20/1
N stage2	N0/N1	2/6	5/16
Surgical procedure
Whipple resection	n	5	16
Left-sided pancreatectomy	n	3	5

¹The 21 patient tumours in the in situ hybridization cohort also included the 8 tumours from the immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence cohort;

²According to the International Union Against Cancer (UICC) pTNM classification version 7[60]. ISH: In situ hybridization; IHC: Immunohistochemistry; IF: Immunofluorescence.

Table 2 Simplified scheme of the expression profiles of 7 of 45 markers that showed a statistically significant difference in expression between the juxtatumoural stroma and peripheral stroma

	Fibroblast markers							ECM marker
	α-SMA	CD10	CD271	Cytoglobin	DOG1	miR-21	Nestin	Tenascin C
Juxtatumoural stroma	++++	+++	+	+++	++	+++	++	++++
Peripheral stroma	++++	+	+++	+	-	+	+	+
Lobular stroma	++++	++	+++	+++	+	+	++	++
Septal stroma	++++	+	+++	++	+	+	+	+
Expression in other cells in PC
Adenocarcinoma cells	-	-	-	-	+	++	-	-
Axons	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Endothelial cells	-	-	-	-	-	-	+++	-
Histiocytes	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Mast cells	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Media myocytes	++++	-	+++	-	-	-	-	-
Neutrophilic granulocytes	-	++	-	-	-	-	-	-
Lymphocytes	-	+++	-	-	-	-	-	-

The expression of these markers in the juxtatumoural, peripheral, lobular and septal stroma is shown, as well as that in adenocarcinoma cells, axons, endothelial cells, histiocytes, mast cells, media myocytes, neutrophilic granulocytes, and lymphocytes. Symbol key: (-) Not expressed in the cell type; (+) barely perceptible expression; (++) weak expression; (+++) moderate expression; (++++) strong expression. α-SMA: α-smooth muscle actin; DOG1: Discovered on gastrointestinal stromal tumours 1; ECM: Extracellular matrix; PC: Pancreatic cancer.