Fig. 5
NRP-1 contributes to the growth and liver metastasis of pancreatic cancer cells in vivo. a, b BxPC-3 and BxPC-NRPlow cells were subcutaneously injected into the mice. a The growth curve of tumors were recorded. b Tumors were harvested, weighed and photographed at the end of experiments. c Illustrated are representative tumor sections immunostained by Abs against NRP-1, Ki-67 and CD31, respectively. Magnification ×400. Magnification bar = 200 µm. The cell proliferation index (d) and microvessel density (e) were quantified. f, g BxPC-3 and BxPC-NRPlow cells were injected into the spleen of mice, which were killed 4 weeks later to harvest the livers. f Illustrated are representative images of HE-stained liver sections. Magnification bar = 500 µm. Arrows point to metastatic nodules in the livers. g Numbers of metastatic tumor nodules in livers were counted. “n”, number of mice. “**” (P < 0.001) indicates a significant difference from mice injected with BxPC-3 cells