Fig. 4

Expression of macrophage signatures in NSCLC, according to stage of cancer. GSVA was used to compare the expression of macrophage signatures across the cancer datasets GSE31210 and GSE72194. GSVA calculates sample-wise enrichment scores (ES). We compiled 49 gene sets each related to a specific macrophage activation status obtained from Xue et al. [13] and the ES was calculated for each gene set for each subject. NA, normal tissue. Two macrophage signatures (modules 22 and 36 which are similar to signatures of monocytes activated by oleic acid and tumour necrosis factor + Pam3CSK4 + prostaglandin E2 respectively) showed differential expression between normal lung tissue and Stages 1 and 2 of lung cancer (p < 0.05)