Fig. 1

Elevated HMGA2 expression in human MPNSTs and its relationship with patient survival. a Average expression of HMGA2 in MPNSTs (n = 6) and neurofibromas (n = 26) relative to that in normal nerves (n = 3) in the Jessen cohort. b Average expression of HMGA2 in MPNSTs (n = 30) and neurofibromas (n = 8) in the Kolberg cohort. c HMGA2 protein expression is elevated in MPNSTs compared with that in neurofibromas. d GAPDH was used as the control. Relative HMGA2 protein expression is shown as a percentage of GAPDH expression. e IHC for positive and negative HMGA2 staining in normal human nerve, neurofibroma, NF1 MPNST and sporadic MPNST sections. Scale bar, 100 μm. f and g Overall survival of all MPNST patients and sporadic MPNST patients. h Identification of human NFSCs by immunostaining for S100b and comparison with the human SC-derived MPNST cell lines ST8814 and sNF96.2. Blue in the merged image indicates DAPI labelling of nuclei. Scale bar, 50 μm. i NF1 protein expression was absent in NFSCs. HMGA2 expression was higher in the NF1-deficient MPNST cell lines ST8814 and sNF96.2 than in NFSCs and the NF1-expressing cell lines sNF02.2 and STS26T. j GAPDH was used as the control. Relative HMGA2 protein expression level is shown a percentage of GAPDH expression. Each data point is presented as the mean ± SD. *P < 0.05. All experiments were performed in three biological replicates