Figure 2

BRMS1 inhibits NPC cell migration and invasion in vitro and suppresses lung metastasis in vivo. (A) The effect of BRMS1 overexpression on cell migration in the wound healing assay. The right panels show a slower wound healing response in the BRMS1-overexpressing cells than in the vector control cells 24 h after scratching (magnification, 40×). (B) The effect of BRMS1 overexpression on cell invasion in the Transwell migration assay. The left panels are representative photomicrographs (magnification, 100×), while the right panels are the numbers of trans-membrane cells per field (magnification, 100×) counted in five random fields for each of the BRMS1-overexpressing and control groups in triplicate parallel experiments. (* p < 0.01; Student’s t-test). (C) BRMS1 overexpression inhibits metastasis in murine NPC xenografts. Mouse tumor xenografts were created (n = 8 per group). Representative macroscopic photographs of pulmonary metastases; the arrowheads indicate the metastatic nodules on the surface of the lungs (upper left in C). The average numbers of metastases in each group are shown in parallel on the right. Lung sections from each group were stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) to quantify the degree of lung metastasis (lower left in C). Histograms depicting the average number of microscopic metastases in each group are shown on the right. (* p < 0.01; Student’s t-test).