Fig. 2: miR-1304-3p promotes cancer progression in vivo.

a Scheme of experimental procedures. MDAMB231 cells stably expressing miR-1304 or control were labeled with luciferase and injected into mammary fat pads of 8-week-old nude mice, and tumor growth was monitored by IVIS bioluminescence imaging and tumor size was measured by caliper, tumor size was calculated by 0.5 * length * width 2 (0.5*LW2). b Quantification of miR-1304-3p by TaqMan assay in blood samples from the MDAMB231-Ctr and MDAMB231-1304 tumor-bearing mice at the endpoint. Serum samples from three mice in each group were used and analyzed by the two-tailed unpaired student t-test. p = 0.0018. c The photo image of tumors collected at the endpoint. N = 10 for each group. d Tumor size (0.5*LW2) was quantified by caliper measurements (two-way ANOVA, day 18: p = 0.008477, day 22: p = 0.028171, day 26: p = 0.0286), n = 10 biologically independent animals. e Endpoint tumor weight (unpaired two-tailed student t test, p = 0.0013, n = 10 biologically independent animals) was shown. f Luciferase signal of primary tumors was measured by IVIS. Left: representative photos of mice; Right: In vivo growth of tumors were quantified (two-way ANOVA, day 22: p = 2e-6, day 26: p = 2.19e-4, n = 10 biologically independent animals.). g Ex vivo quantification of lung metastasis by BLI (unpaired two-tailed student t test, p = 0.0571, n = 4 biologically independent samples). h HE staining of lung tissues collected from control or miR-1304-expressing tumor-bearing mice, and the average number of foci per mm² were shown on the right. Data were from 20 random fields for each group under microscope. Unpaired two-tailed student t test, p = 2.949e-5. Scale bar = 100 μm. Data are presented as mean values +/- SEM.