Figure 2

Effects of chronic alcohol consumption on the expression of CD31, VEGF, MCP-1 and NF-kB in HCC patients. (A) Immunohistochemical analysis of new blood vessels with anti-CD31 staining in different liver tissues. a: Liver cirrhosis; b: Distant non-cancerous liver tissues in HCC patients; c: HCC tissues of no-alcohol drinking patients; d: HCC tissues of alcohol-drinking patients; a-d: (Bar: 200 μm). The brown staining indicates the presence of microvessels. (B) Quantitative analysis of average microvessel density (AMVD, the number of microvessels per mm² area) indicated that alcohol consumption significantly increased the number of new blood vessels (61.0 ± 6.78 in alcohol drinking patient vs 42.6 ± 4.82 in no-alcohol drinking patients, ** P < 0.01). (C) Immunohistochemical analysis of VEGF, MCP-1 and NF-κBp65 in liver tissues and HCC. (Bar: 100 μm). Arrows indicate NF-kBp65⁺ brown stain, which mainly found in the nuclei of tumor cells. (D) Quantitative analysis of VEGF, MCP-1 was determined by integral optical density. (E) Quantitative analysis of NF-κBp65 immunohistochemistry, as given by the nuclear-to-cytoplasmic ratio of NF-κBp65 positivity, n = 3.