Research Paper Volume 13, Issue 17 pp 21216—21231

Figure 3. Upregulation of WISP2 is related to tumour purity, and the infiltration of fibroblasts into HCC tissues exerts a negative role in HCC progression. (A, a) In nude mouse models, subcutaneous tumour weights did not differ in mice injected with Hep3B-WISP2 and Hep3B-Vector. (A, b) Subcutaneous tumour weights also did not differ in mice injected with HepG2-WISP2 and HepG2-Vector. (B, a, b) Higher expression of WISP2 were acting as a protective factor, especially in HCC patients without alcohol intake. (C) WISP2 expression was significantly negatively correlated with tumour purity (a), and was significantly correlated with the specific marker of vascular endothelial cells (b) and fibroblast (c) in TIMER database. (D) The interactions between WISP2 and ACTA2 were evaluated using GeneMANIA database. (E) Increased numbers of fibroblasts and fibro-collagen deposition were positive correlated with the expression of WISP2 in HCC. (F) Human liver cancer tissue microarrays confirmed a positive correlation between WISP2 and α-SMA.