Fig. 2: Pleomorphism is associated with fibrosis and murine RMS resembles human RMS.

a, b Masson’s Trichrome staining of PE RMS (a) and NPE (b) RMS depicting ECM/collagenous material in blue and cell cytoplasm in red. Scale bar: 50 µm. c Representative micrograph of one core of human RMS TMAs (n = 36 biologically independent samples) stained with Masson’s Trichrome. Scale bar: 50 µm, inset scale bar: 10 µm. d Quantification of ECM/collagen deposition in PE and NPE RMS; Mean ± s.d.; Mann–Whitney (unpaired) t-test; PE: n = 9 and NPE: n = 12 biologically independent tumors. e Quantification of tumor intracytoplasmic collagen from PE and NPE RMS; Mean ± s.d.; Mann–Whitney (unpaired) test; PE: n = 10 and NPE: n = 11 biologically independent tumors. f PE and NPE Col1a2 mRNA expression relative to PE. Mean ± s.d.; Welch (unpaired) t-test; PE: n = 6 and NPE: n = 11 biologically independent tumors. g PE and NPE Col4a1 mRNA expression relative to PE. Mean ± s.d.; Welch (unpaired) t-test; PE: n = 6 and NPE: n = 12 biologically independent tumors. h Heatmap of gene expression comparison between murine and human RMS. The nine genes that correlated between murine RMS and ARMS are boxed in orange. Pearson’s correlation was performed on 91 genes analyzed.