Fig. 1

IL6 is upregulated in lung cancer and correlates with ERβ expression. (a) Immunohistochemical staining of IL6 and ERβ protein in human lung cancer tissue. The brown color in cancer cells denotes positive staining. A negative control was performed without primary antibody. Representative images of IL6 and ERβ expression in NSCLC are shown, including both squamous carcinoma and adenocarcinoma. Original magnification × 100 and × 400. Scale bars 50 and 20 μm respectively. (b) The relative level of IL6 expression was plotted against the relative level of ERβ expression in 289 samples (r (spearman) =0.263; p = 0.004). (c) Primary NSCLC tumor tissues and metastatic lymph node tissues in three typical cases (original magnification 100× (left) and 400× (right)). (d) IHC scores of 30 pairs of specimens from both primary tumor tissue and metastatic lymph nodes (□: lymph nodes metastasis; ○: primary tumor). (e) Western blotting analysis of IL6 expression in three paired primary NSCLC tissues and matched metastatic lymph node tissues. GAPDH was used as a loading control