Fig. 2

Tumors from low-muscularity (LM) patients present a pro-inflammatory profile enriched with cachexia-inducing factors and mediators. A Principal component analysis (PCA) demonstrating similar expression profiles between high-muscularity (HM) and LM patients. B Volcano-plot demonstrating differentially expressed genes in LM (fold change > 1.5 and P-value < 0.05). C Enrichment analysis of top 10 terms related to biological processes from 332 up (red) and 350 downregulated (blue) genes in LM. Bar graphs represent ranked − log10 P-values (Fisher exact test), from the least to the most significant according to EnrichR analysis. D Protein–protein interaction networks of the ninety upregulated genes predicted to encode secreted proteins in LM patients. The larger the circles, the higher the betweenness centrality value of the node. Red intensities represent the gene expression fold change (logFC). Larger letter sizes indicate previously described cachexia-inducing factors in pan-cancer [10] and lung cancer [9]. Gray lines highlight the interactions. Interactions were visualized using Cytoscape v3.7.2. E Scatterplot comparing abundance (log10 FPKMs, y-axis) and degree of expression (log2-fold change, x-axis) of upregulated genes in LM. FPKM: Fragments Per Kilobase Million