Fig. 1

CCL20 levels are elevated in chemoresistant CRC patients. a Heatmap showing the concentration of 13 cytokines and 13 chemokines (pg/mL) in serum samples from CRC patients with chemosensitivity (S) and chemoresistance (R) as measured by multiplex assay. b CCL20 concentration (pg/ml) in serum samples from CRC patients (n = 87) with chemosensitivity and chemoresistance as measured by ELISA. c Histogram showing the percentage of chemosensitivity and chemoresistant patients with high and low levels of CCL20. The 87 serum samples from CRC patients were stratified as ‘high’ and ‘low’ according to the median CCL20 level (median = 81.55 pg/ml). d Concentration of CCL20 (pg/ml) in the serum obtained from chemosensitive and chemoresistant CRC patients at different chemotherapy stages as measured by ELISA. e Immune reactivity score (IRS) of CCL20 in peritumor and tumor tissues with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (n = 55) or without neoadjuvant chemotherapy (n = 104) as evaluated by immunohistochemistry (200 ×). PT- paired peritumor tissues, T-tumor tissues, S-tumor tissues with chemo-sensitivity, R-tumor tissues with chemoresistance, CPT-negative staining for paired peritumor tissues, CT-negative staining for tumor tissues. f Colorectal tumor tissues subjected to double immunofluorescence for CD326 (green), CCL20 (red), and DAPI (blue). One representative micrograph is shown (200 ×). g Kaplan-Meier survival curves for 104 CRC patients without neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The samples were stratified as ‘high’ and ‘low’ according to the IRS of CCL20 (IRS = 5). *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001