Fig. 2

SOX9 expression in metastatic melanomas. a, b Representative images showing immunofluorescence for SOX9, SOX10, and NEDD9 in the cross-section of the intestinal metastatic melanoma from two patients. b Arrowheads indicate pigmented melanoma cells co-expressing SOX9, SOX10, and NEDD9. The dotted white box in the merged image indicates the magnified region with separate color channels shown in the lower panels. c Representative images showing immunofluorescence on consecutive lung sections with metastatic melanoma for SOX10, MELAN-A, MITF, as well as SOX9 and NEDD9. Cell nuclei were counterstained with DAPI (blue). Scale bars: 10 μm. d Quantification of the number of cells positive for the indicated markers in 12 melanocytic nevi, 14 primary dermal melanomas and 25 metastatic melanomas. e The amount of SOX9 transcripts was measured by qRT-PCR in 22 healthy skin controls, metastatic melanoma specimens from the intestine (n = 37) and lung (n = 27). Error bars represent mean ± SD. Student‘s t-test, ***p < 0.001