Fig. 5

Tissue localization of selected proteins. Serial sections of normal mucosa and tumor tissue were stained using antibodies directed against SerpinB5 (a, b), THBS2 (e, f), SPARC (i, j), and αSMA (m, n). a, e, i, m representative area of normal intestinal mucosa. b, f, j, n representative area of tumor tissue. Scale bars correspond to 500 µm. A selected area was magnified ×20 and is shown in the inserts. Staining intensity for all images was quantified using Definiens software. The diagrams depict the pooled quantification obtained from 26 tumor samples and corresponding normal tissue with regard to overall tumor and normal tissue (c) or tumor and normal epithelium for SerpinB5 (d). For THBS2, quantification results are depicted for total tumor and normal areas (g) or tumor and normal stromal compartments (h). For SPARC, quantification is presented for tumor and normal stromal compartments (k) and specifically for low/high staining intensities (l). *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001; ****p < 0.0001; ns: not significant, according to Mann–Whitney U test