Fig. 1

Expression and localization of TIMP-2 in high-grade serous ovarian tumours compared to benign serous tumours. a Representative images of TIMP-2 staining in primary ovarian serous high-grade, benign serous tumours and their matching controls. Colum 1 is a representative image of high-grade serous patient sample 9 (Table 1) and its matching control, column 2 is high-grade serous patient sample 17 (Table 1) and its matching control and the last column is a benign tumour from patient sample 5 (Table 1) and its matching control. Black arrowheads indicate positive TIMP-2 stained epithelial cells. Yellow asterisks indicate positive CA125 stained cells. Areas/regions included in the analysis were selected using CA125 marker to identify tumour positive areas, red dash lines indicated how areas were selected for analysis. Images are representative of high-grade (n = 17) and benign (n = 8) tumours. Magnification (20X), scale bar = 100um; Magnification (40X), scale bar = 50uM. b TIMP-2 expression was significantly upregulated in serous high-grade compared to benign serous tumours. Graph is a representative of DAB positivity over area divided by negative control for each patient tissue block described in Methods. Error bars are presented as mean ± of SEM. Significance is indicated by **** p < 0.0001, unpaired Man-Whitney’s non-parametric t-test