Fig. 8

Gelatinase activity in calcitriol-treated CAFs derived from tumors of patients with different clinical characteristics. A–B data presented for CAFs from all patients. D–E Data presented for CAFs derived from tumors of patients with different clinical characteristics. CAFs were treated with calcitriol (cal; 1 nM or 10 nM) for 72 h. C representative cropped gels, negative photography. A and D MMP-2 activity, B and E MMP-9 activity, Molecular weight of analyzed proteins: MMP2—55–66 kDa, MMP9—97 kDa. Full-length gels are presented in Figure S9 in the Supplementary Materials. Patients were classified into groups according to plasma 25(OH)D₃ levels (VD3, < 30 ng/mL—deficient (n = 9), > 30 ng/mL—normal (n = 7)), plasma FSH levels (< 25.8 mIU/mL—premenopausal (n = 6), > 25.8 mIU/mL—postmenopausal (n = 10)) and regional or distant metastasis presence (if any—metastatic (n = 6), otherwise nonmetastatic (n = 10)). Densitometric analysis was performed using ImageJ software. The results are presented as the percentage of untreated cells. Data are presented as the mean ± SEM. Statistical analysis was carried out using Student’s t-test or the Mann‒Whitney U test for single comparisons and one-way ANOVA or the Kruskal‒Wallis test for multiple comparisons. *p ≤ 0.05