Fig. 2

Survey of Nectin-4 expression at mRNA level in human EC tissues based on TCGA data. a, b Based on the TCGA data from http://gepia.cancer-pku.cn/, we could not find any significant difference of Nectin-1 and Nectin-2 at mRNA level between cancer tissues and adjacent normal tissues. c, d We found that the mRNA expression level of Nectin-3 was significantly higher in cancer tissues compared with that in adjacent normal tissues (P < 0.05), and the mRNA expression level of Nectin-4 was significantly higher in adjacent normal tissues compared with cancer tissues (P < 0.05). e–g We found that the expression of Nectin-4 at the mRNA level in EC tissues was positively and significantly correlated with that of Nectin-1 (P < 0.0001), while it was negatively and significantly correlated with that of Nectin-2 (P < 0.0001) and Nectin-3 (P < 0.0001). h, i We didn’t find any significant correlations between patients’ postoperative survival and Nectin-1 or Nectin-2. j The overall survival rate of the patients with higher expression of Nectin-3 at the mRNA level was significantly greater compared with those showing lower Nectin-3 expression (P = 0.006). k The patients with lower expression of Nectin-4 at the mRNA level exhibited better overall survival rate compared with those showing higher Nectin-4 expression, although the difference was not significant (P = 0.266)