Fig. 1

CXCL17 is upregulated in lung metastatic breast cancer cells. a Scheme of the animal model. 4T1 cells (500,000 cells per fat pad) were implanted into the mammary fat pads and allowed to spontaneously metastasize to the lung for 24 days. Whole primary tumor in mammary or tumor nodules in the lungs (n = 3), livers (n = 4), and intestine (n = 4) and lymph nodes (tumor nodules = 7) were subjected to gene profiling. b Specific gene profile of breast cancer metastasized to lung. c The upregulation of CXCL17 protein in lung metastatic 4T1 cells. 4T1 cells were implanted into mice in an orthotic model. The expression of CXCL17 protein of 4T1 cells isolated from primary sites (mammary) or lung tissue (six pairs of 4T1 cell isolated from in mammary and lung) was assessed by ELISA after 48-h incubation. d In the left panel, the box plot generated from Kao Huang Breast GSE20685 dataset of SurvExpress showed the amount of CXCL17 expression in each group. The right panel showed the Kaplan-Meier time to metastasis curve. e The results were from Van De Vijver Nature 2002 dataset of SurvExpress. The left and right panels showed CXCL17 expression and the Kaplan-Meier time to metastasis curve respectively. The group was divided according to the “Maximize Risk Groups” in SurvExpress website. f Kaplan-Meier distant metastasis-free survival via KM plotter database. High and low CXCL17 expression groups were divided according to “Auto select best cutoff” in the KM plotter website. Each value is the mean ± SD of three determinations; *p < 0.05