SPARC and lung cancer: To validate the ECM-related genes expression patterns at protein level we performed western blot analyses on cell lysates of CAF (n = 3) and NF (n = 3) cell lines established from lung cancer patients and found that COL10A1 and SPARC were slightly enriched in CAF compared to NF (p = 0.171 and p = 0.025 respectively), while no differences in COL11A1 expression levels were detected (p = 0.374) (Fig. 1a).