Fig 2: B7S1 protein was mainly expressed in intratumoral myeloid cells in human OvCa. (A) Representative immunofluorescence images of B7S1 in human OvCa. Original magnification: 40x (OvCa#1), 100x(OvCa#2). (B,C) Representative figures and summarized data showing the percentages of B7S1-positive DCs, Mø/Mo, mMDSCs, and gMDSCs in tumors, ascites, and PBMCs from patients with OvCa. Statistical analysis was performed using one-way analysis of variance followed by Tukey’s multiple comparison tests. The data are presented as means ± standard errors of the means; ns P > 0.05, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, and ***p < 0.001. (D,E) Representative figures and summarized data of pB7S1R expression on CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, NK cells, and NK T cells in OvCa tumors detected by a biotinylated hB7S1-mIgG2a Fc fusion protein.

Fig 3: VTCN1 was overexpressed in OvCa and correlated with multiple co-inhibitory immune checkpoint genes. (A) Heatmap analysis of the mRNA expression of B7/CD28 family genes in various human tumors, shown as scaled log2-fold changes (GEPIA data). (B) The expression levels of VTCN1 in human OvCa and normal controls. The data were derived from TCGA database and are shown on a log2 (TPM +1) scale. TPM: transcripts per million. The p value cutoff was 0.01. *p < 0.05. (C) Correlations of VTCN1 expression with tumor grade (left) and stage (right) in patients with OvCa. (D) Correlations of VTCN1 expression with the mRNA expression levels of several immune checkpoint proteins. (E) Correlations of VTCN1 expression with disease-free survival (upper panel) and overall survival (bottom panel) in patients with OvCa.

Fig 4: Functional annotations and predicted signaling pathway of VTCN1 in OvCa. (A) The PPI network of VTCN1 constructed using STRING. (B) Functional annotation of the VTCN1-related module genes constructed by ClueGo. (C) Significantly enriched GO annotations of VTCN1 in OvCa. BP: biological processes. CC: cellular components; MF: molecular functions.

Fig 5: The Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) of the relationship between the expression level of VTCN1 in the TCGA ovarian cancer dataset. The most involved significant hallmark pathways which were closely correlated with VTCN1 in OvCa obtained by GSEA. NES: normalized enrichment score; FDR: false discovery rate.