Fig. 4: Growth of LNCaP-luc primary prostate tumors and metastasis from the primary prostate tumor to the hTEBC.

a Overview of the different levels of humanization within the in vivo model. The prostate was humanized by co-injection of LNCaP-luc, BVECs, and CAFs into the murine prostate. The back of the mice received humanized bone constructs with hOB seeded scaffolds. b Representative whole body in vivo bioluminescent images (BLI) over the 11 weeks following intraprostatic injection. c Quantification of in vivo BLI signal in mice with the humanized (light gray box plots) compared to the non-humanized (dark gray box plots) prostate microenvironment (n = 5 mice in the non-humanized prostate group and n = 8 mice in the humanized prostate group). d Ex vivo BLI images of murine prostates and e correlating quantification of ex vivo BLI signal from the mouse prostates at the experimental endpoint (n = 5 in the non-humanized prostate group and n = 8 prostates in the humanized prostate group) reveals that there was a significant difference between the groups. f Representative ex vivo BLI of the hTEBCs with LNCaP-luc PCa metastases and h quantification of the BLI data from LNCaP-luc cells which had metastasized from the primary prostate tumor to the hTEBC (n = 10 scaffolds in the non-humanized prostate group and n = 16 scaffolds in the humanized prostate group) reveals increased LNCaP metastasis from the humanized prostate to the hTEBC. g Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining of the primary tumor. Immunohistochemistry staining for NuMA and Lamin A + C using antibodies that react with human but not murine tissues were performed. Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) immunohistochemistry was performed as an additional marker for human LNCaP cells. The scale bars represent 100 µm. Data are represented as box plots depicting the median, first and third quartile, minimum and maximum, and are overlaid with individual data points. All data were not normally distributed and were analyzed using a Mann−Whitney U test. The mouse schematic image was sourced from Wikimedia Commons⁵².