Figure 1

Unsupervised Hierarchical clustering (Kendall's Tau) of serum samples from RCC patients obtained before, after 1 and 4 doses of IL-2 (720,000 IU/kg). Hierarchical clustering [21] was applied to the data set encompassing 46 cytokines significantly expressed (excluding IL-2) between before and after 4 doses of IL-2 across 10 serum samples (P2,3,4,5,9,12,13,14,15,16) obtained before, after 1 and after 4 doses of IL-2 (720,000 IU/kg). Values corresponding to soluble factors concentration in pg/ml were transformed in natural log (LN) values, average corrected across experimental samples and displayed according to the central method for display using a normalization factor as recommended by Ross [33]. Patients' serum samples clustered according to the three time points of IL-2 administration. Expression of soluble factors segregated in 4 distinct kinetic profiling. Black bar = soluble factor minimally changing from before to after 4 doses; blue bar = soluble factor expression enhanced at 4 doses only; orange bar = soluble factor expression enhanced after 1 dose; red bar = soluble factor expression enhanced at 1 and 4 doses.