Figure 1

Endosialin expression in rectal normal mucosa and in rectal cancer (representative images from different groups). (A and B) Weak expression in the fibroblasts and capillaries in the stroma, and lack of expression in epithelial cells of normal mucosa ((A) ×100 and (B) ×400). (C) Strong expression in fibroblasts of tumour-associated stroma (black arrow) and weak expression in fibroblasts of normal mucosa (green arrow), normal epithelial cells are negative (yellow arrow), and a few tumour cells are positive (red arrow) and negative (pink arrow) (×100). (D) Strong expression in fibroblasts of tumour-associated stroma (black arrow) and tumour cells (red arrow), whereas some tumour cells are negative (pink arrow) (×400).