Fig. 5: Effects of the hyperoxic microenvironment by PMC implants in rabbit hepatocarcinoma.
From: Engineering micro oxygen factories to slow tumour progression via hyperoxic microenvironments
a Illustration of NIR-PMC treatment in hepatocarcinoma tumour-bearing rabbits. At 14 days post-tumour implantation (tumour sizes are ~1 cm3), 500 µL of PMCs (3.6 × 104/mL) were intratumourally injected into rabbits, followed by 900 mW/cm2 NIR radiation for 42 days. b Immunostaining of HIF-1α in hepatic tumours. After 28 days, the rabbits were sacrificed to collect tumour tissues. The tissue samples were fixed in 4% formalin for immunohistochemical staining. The ratios of HIF-1α-positive cells (left panel) were calculated by a digital pathology scanner (DMetrix). The data are presented as the mean ± SD derived from three images of independent rabbit liver tumours. **p < 0.01 compared to vehicle control according to two-tailed Student’s t-test. c Representative axial CT images of tumour growth. Tumour-bearing rabbits were treated with or without NIR-PMCs. Healthy, tumour-bearing and NIR-PMC treated animals were subjected to CT imaging at 0, 14, 28, and 42 days. The shape/edge of hepatocarcinoma tumours are described by yellow outline (Scale bars, 1 cm). d Measurement of tumour sizes by CT images. The sizes of hepatocarcinoma tumours were measured by Neusoft PACS/Ris V5.5 at 28 days post-treatment (n = 3). The data are presented as the mean ± SD. **p < 0.01 compared to the data for untreated hepatocarcinoma tumour-bearing rabbits according to two-tailed Student’s t-test. e Representative axial CT images of pulmonary tumour metastases. The animal lungs were imaged by CT at 0, 14, 28, and 42 days post-treatment. The nodules of pulmonary metastases are described by yellow arrows. f The numbers of pulmonary metastasis nodules in rabbit lungs (n = 3). The data are presented as the mean ± SD. *p < 0.05 compared to untreated animals according to two-tailed Student’s t-test. g Kaplan–Meier curves showing the survival rates of the indicated rabbits at 140 days (n = 10). The data are presented as *p < 0.05, compared to the data for untreated hepatocarcinoma tumour-bearing rabbits according to Log rank test by SPSS statistics 17.0 software. Source data are provided as a Source data file.
