Fig. 3

Expression of cytokines, growth factors, and their receptors in ovarian cancer ascites. a Validation of RNA-Seq data by RT-qPCR of tumor cell and TAM samples (each dot represents a different sample). b RT-qPCR analysis of matched tumor cell and TAM samples from the same patients (each dot represents a matched pair). Data are represented as the ratio of expression in tumor cells and TAMs. The dotted line indicates a ratio of 1. c FACS analysis of cytokine (intracellular IL-8, S100A8/A9, and S100A14) and receptor (LIFR and TGFBR3) expression by tumor cells and TAMs. Data in (a)–(c) were statistically analyzed by Student’s t-test (two-sided, unequal variance). Horizontal bars indicate the median. Gene names are explained in Additional file 3: Datasets S4 and S5. d Concentrations of cytokines and growth factors in the ascites fluid from ovarian cancer patients. Each dot represent a different patient, horizontal lines indicate the median. e RNA-Seq analysis of tumor cell spheroids before and after a 6-day culture in serum-free medium supplemented with 10 % autologous ascites (n = 4). The figure shows the ratio of matched pairs for all protein mediator-encoding genes induced under these conditions at least tenfold (each dot represents a matched pair; median: horizontal bar; 95 % CI: box; min–max: whiskers)