Figure 1

Real-time PCR quantification of gene expression in endothelial cells isolated from human cancer and normal tissue specimens. Endothelial cells were exposed (A) or not (B) to VEGF, EGF, FGF-2 and fibronectin (see Methods for details). Fold differences for each EC population and p values for each gene analyzed are shown. The expression of the target gene was normalized to 18s rRNA for each of the EC populations being evaluated: ΔCt = Ct_target - Ct_18s. Statistical analysis on ΔCt values was performed comparing tumor and normal tissue derived EC. Fold differences were calculated according to the comparative ΔΔCt method: Fold difference = 2 ^{-(ΔCt each population-ΔCt ref)} by arbitrarily considering the normal tissue derived ECs as reference (ΔCt_ref being their average ΔCt value).