Prognostic relevance of MAPK and NOTCH in colorectal cancer. (A) Assessment of FRA1 and NICD in primary human colorectal cancers. For FRA1, tumors were categorized as negative or positive, based on absence or presence of detectable immunostaining in tumor cells. For NICD, cases were categorized as low or high, based on less or more than 10% tumor cells with strong NICD staining, respectively. (B) Survival associations of FRA1, NICD, and their combination in 225 UICC stage II colorectal cancers. Kaplan-Meier plots for cancer-specific survival and disease free survival are shown. P-values are log-rank test results. Ratios on curves indicate the number of events over the number of patients per group. (C) Association of FRA1, NICD, and their combination with liver metastasis in a matched case-control collection of 92 colon cancers. *, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01 by χ2 test. (D) Representative staining for FRA1 and NICD in a primary colon cancer and corresponding liver metastasis. Arrowheads indicate tumor cells at the tumor edge, and arrows indicate tumor cells toward the tumor center; open arrowheads indicate endothelial cells. Bars, 50 µm.
