Fig. 3
Western blotting. Western blotting for surgically resected tissues (M: marker, N: normal tissue, T1-3: three different parts of tumor tissues). In a patient with cT3bN1M1 clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC-1) who received preoperative axitinib as well as the current patient, tumor tissues obtained by nephrectomy after axitinib treatment showed heterogeneous changes. Some tumor tissue (T2 and T3) showed much lower expression of pAkt (Ser-473), pAkt (Thr-308), and pS6 than other tissue (T1). Similarly, in the other patients with cTanyN1Many ccRCCs (ccRCC-2 to −4) treated with preoperative axitinib, tumor tissues showed heterogeneous pattern. These findings indicate that some parts of the cancer would show a good response to axitinib but other parts would not. On the other hand, in the present patient with cT3aN1M0, renal cell cancer with papillary type 2 (pRCC2), surgically resected cancer tissues (T1 to T3) showed high expression of pAkt (Ser-473) and pAkt (Thr-308), as well as very low expression of pS6, indicating that the mTORC2-Akt signaling may be more important for molecular targeting than the mTORC1-S6 pathway in HLRCC-associated kidney cancer compared with clear cell RCC