Stage-dependent and heterogeneous tumor association of Fusobacterium nucleatum in Romanian patients with colon adenocarcinoma

Figure 1 Scatter plot. A: FS17 detection in tumor vs adjacent colonic tissue. Scatter plot of paired quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction cycle threshold (Ct) values for Fusobacterium nucleatum (F. nucleatum) detected with the FS17 primer set in tumor and adjacent non-tumoral colonic tissues. Lower Ct values indicate higher bacterial detection. Marked interindividual variability was observed, with higher tumor-associated FS17 detection in slightly more than half of the cases; B: Correlation between microRNA-21 (miR-21) expression and FS17 tumor Ct values. Scatter plot illustrating the relationship between miR-21 Ct values and FS17-derived F. nucleatum Ct values in tumor tissue. Pearson correlation analysis demonstrated a weak and non-significant association (r = −0.12, P = 0.66), indicating no direct relationship between miR-21 expression and tumor-associated bacterial detection; C: Correlation between miR-21 expression and FS17 Ct values in adjacent tissue. Scatter plot showing the association between miR-21 Ct values and FS17-derived F. nucleatum Ct values in adjacent non-tumoral colonic tissue. No significant correlation was observed (r = −0.09, P = 0.74), suggesting independent variation of miR-21 expression and bacterial detection in non-tumoral tissue. miR-21: MicroRNA-21.