Fig. 6From: Matrisome analysis of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma unveils a peculiar cancer-associated extracellular matrix structureAnalysis of collagen alignment in iCCA and NCT samples (N = 9). a The collagen fiber organization was studied on Sirius Red/Fast Green stained sections (upper panel). The fibers were identified and reconstructed by the ct-FIRE software package (middle panel). The coefficient of alignment of total collagen fibers was calculated by the CurveAlign software package and visualized by heat maps using red color to indicate well aligned fiber region (lower panel). b COL3A1 fibers were identified by immunofluorescence (left image); immunofluorescence images were processed with ct-FIRE and CurveAlign software packages; the coefficient of alignment is visualized by the heat map using red color to indicate well aligned fiber region (right image). c Histogram shows that iCCA samples have a relatively higher alignment coefficient for their collagen organization in respect to NCT samples with COL3A1 as a component of iCCA-induced aligned collagen. Coefficient of alignment ranges from completely random fiber orientation, 0.0, to completely aligned fiber orientation, 1.0; *p < 0.05 versus NCT. Analyses were performed on 5 non-overlapping fields at ×20 magnification per sampleBack to article page