Fig. 1

Study workflow. A Illustration of histological tissue specimen and LMD enriched sample preparation followed by quantitative proteomic [high-resolution liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (TMT LC–MS/MS) and reverse phase protein microarray (RPPA)] and transcriptomic (RNA-seq) analyses. Frozen tissue specimens from 9 USC patients were sectioned into ~ 200 consecutive thin tissue sections which were divided into 5 evenly distributed sampling levels (quintiles). Tissue sections within each level were laser microdissected for harvest of ET, ES, and BT to support each downstream analytical workflow. B Representative pre- and post-LMD micrographs from the top and bottom levels of tissue from case 343WC. The number in the bottom right corner of each micrograph indicates the section number. The scale bar in the bottom left corner of each micrograph indicates a length of 4 or 5 mm, as specified