Chitinase 3-like 1 secreted by peritumoral macrophages in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma is a favorable prognostic factor for survival

Figure 1 Kaplan-Meier survival curves of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients. A: Overall survival of patients with CHI3L1 in all ESCC patients; B: Overall survival of patients with CHI3L1 in patients of Stage I-II; C: Overall survival of patients with CHI3L1 in patients of Stage III-IV; D: Overall survival of patients with SCCA in all ESCC patients; E: Overall survival of patients with SCCA in patients of Stage I-II; F: Overall survival of patients with SCCA in patients of Stage III-IV; G: Overall survival of patients with CEA in all ESCC patients; H: Overall survival of patients with CEA in patients of Stage I-II; I: Overall survival of patients with patients of Stage III-IV. CHI3L1: Chitinase 3-like 1; ESCC: Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma; SCCA: Squamous cell carcinoma antigen.

Figure 2 Representative micrographs of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma tissues after immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence assay. A: Sections stained with a CHI3L1 specific antibody (left- × 200; right- × 40); B: Sections immunofluorescence stained with CHI3L1 (upper left), an antibody against the macrophage specific marker CD68 (upper right), a nuclear counterstain DAPI (lower left) and their merge (lower right). CHI3L1: Chitinase 3-like 1.

Figure 3 Expression level of chitinase 3-like 1 in monocyte-derived macrophages after stimulation of either supernatant of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cell line Eca-109 or interleukin-6. A: Expression of CHI3L1 mRNA and protein in monocyte-derived macrophages (upper, mRNA; lower, protein) after stimulation of Eca-109 cell line supernatant was analyzed by real-time PCR and ELISA, respectively; B: Cytokine levels of Eca-109 supernatant were measured with BD CBA Th1/Th2/Th17 Cytokine Kit; C: Level of CHI3L1 mRNA (left) and protein (right) in monocyte-derived macrophages after stimulation of interleukin-6 (IL-6) was analyzed by real-time PCR and ELISA, respectively. Error bars represent standard deviations (SD) calculated from three parallel experiments. CHI3L1: Chitinase 3-like 1.

Figure 4 Associations of chitinase 3-like 1 with inflammatory indexes were analyzed by Spearman correlation. A: The associations of chitinase 3-like 1 (CHI3L1) with white blood counts (WBC); B: The associations of CHI3L1 with neutrophil counts (NEU); C: The associations of CHI3L1 with lymphocyte counts (LY); D: The associations of CHI3L1 with platelet counts (PLT); E: The associations of CHI3L1 with NLR (NEU/LY); F: The associations of CHI3L1 with PLR (PLT/LY); G: The associations of CHI3L1 with C-reactive protein (CRP).