Fig. 3

Local tumor growth and metastasis to the draining lymph node, lung and liver in NSG mice. 2 × 10⁶ PC3-mCD47 and PC3-GFP-Luc cells were injected to the right flank of NSG mice and tumor growth was monitored for 24 days a. Then primary tumor was surgically removed and animals were optically imaged weekly with IVIS for luciferase. The signal detected within the region of interest (indicated with a red circle) covers the draining lymph node and other distant organs such as lung and liver b. Shown on the right-hand side of B are typical images from each animal group, in which the original tumor inoculation sites were indicated by arrows. The draining lymph node was collected and measured four weeks later after termination of the experiment c. Shown on the right-hand side of C are representative gross appearances of the explanted draining lymph nodes. d By the end of the experiment, mice were euthanized and lung and liver were collected for preparation of tissue sections, which were then H&E stained for histological examination and quantitation of metastatic lesions. The number of metastatic lesions was obtained from counting five different fields of organ sections from each animal. e shows representative micrographs from the H&E stained lung and liver tissue. Low magnification showing the entire organ section is on the left of each panel, and high magnification of the defined square area showing metastatic lesions is on the right of each panel. The metastatic lesions are indicated with arrowheads. Error bars represent the mean ± SD (n = 5 per group), ✱p < 0.05 and ✜ p < 0.01 as compared to PC3-GFP-Luc