Fig. 5

CTSL was correlated with p53 mutation and tumor malignancy in NSCLC patients. a The expression of CTSL and EMT markers were examined in mut-p53 NSCLC tissues (n = 35) and wt-p53 NSCLC tissues (n = 43) using immunohistochemistry (representative images were shown in the left panel). The corresponding quantities of protein expression were shown (right panel). b Four tumor tissues were randomly selected respectively from the wt-p53 group and mut-p53 group for western blotting analysis of CTSL, Egr-1 and EMT markers (left panel). Band intensity of proteins was quantified and relative-fold change with mut-p53 vs. wt-p53 is presented (right panel). c Western blotting analysis of CTSL expression was different between tumor tissues and paired adjacent tissues. d The expression of CTSL progressively increased with increasing malignancy grade in squamous cell carcinoma but not evident in adenocarcinoma using western blotting analysis. e Immunohistochemical staining was conducted to examine the expression of CTSL in lung cancer tissues with I-IV malignant grades (representative images were shown in left panel). The correlation between CTSL and malignant grades was shown (right panel). Data are shown as mean ± S.D., n = 3, *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, *** P < 0.001, Student’s t-test