Fig. 8: Anticancer efficacy of hybrid lipoplexes (RLS/HS@Au/SP141/p53) in HepG2 and A549 tumor-bearing Balb/c athymic nude mice and validation of mechanisms of cytoskeleton remodeling in vivo.

a Establishment of the subcutaneous HepG2 tumor model and dosing regimen. b HepG2 tumor weight and c photographs of the excised tumors from different treatment groups. n = 5 mice. The scale bar is 2 cm. d Tumor growth curves of mice receiving hybrid lipoplexes treatments. n = 11 mice. e H&E staining of HepG2 tumors extracted from mice after the indicated treatments. The white arrow represents the necrotic area of the tumor. The scale bars are 1 mm and 200 μm, respectively. The HepG2 xenograft tumor sections were further analyzed for p53 and MDM2 protein expression with immunohistochemistry. The scale bar is 20 μm. Apoptotic events were determined by the TdT-mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) assay. The scale bar is 50 μm. n = 3 mice. f Pull-down assay of GTP-RhoA in HepG2 tumor-bearing mice treated with tail vein injections of RLS/HS@Au/pDNA (pDNA 20 μg/mouse). The β-actin was used as a loading control, and GTPγs was the positive control. g Immunofluorescence staining of F-actin (green) in HepG2 tumors sections. n = 3 mice. The scale bar is 20 μm. h Tumor growth curves of A549 tumor-bearing Balb/c nude mice receiving hybrid lipoplexes treatments. n = 5 mice. i Photographs of the excised tumors from different treatment groups. The scale bar is 2 cm. Two-sided unpaired Student’s t test was used for the comparisons in (b). The data in (b, d, and h) are mean ± SD. p values < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.