Fig. 1

Transcriptome sequencing of NSCLC tissues, the expression of KLF5, GCN5, GDF15, C5aR in tumor tissues and the content of C5a in plasma of NSCLC patients. a Venn diagram showed that a total of 944 genes were upregulated (≥2-fold) by RNA-seq of 12 pairs of NSCLC tissues and 86 genes were in the overlap of all three sequencing results. b Gene ontology (GO) analysis for the 86 genes displayed that represented biological processes included cell proliferation, growth and maintenance. c, d Representative images of IHC staining for KLF5, GCN5, and GDF15 in paraffin-embedded sections of NSCLC patients (c) and statistical analysis of IHC staining intensity and area (d). The expression of KLF5, GCN5, and GDF15 in NSCLC tumor tissues were increased compared to adjacent tissues (N = 185). e Quantification of plasma C5a in 40 NSCLC patients and 40 healthy volunteers by ELISA. Plasma C5a level of NSCLC patients was higher than control donors (**P < 0.01). f, g Representative result (f) and statistical analysis (g) for C5aR expression in NSCLC tissues by IHC. The C5aR expression was upregulated in NSCLC tumor tissues in comparison with adjacent tissues (N = 185)