Figure - PMC

Skip to main content

An official website of the United States government

Here's how you know

Here's how you know

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

View full-text article in PMC

. 2023 Jun 28;5(3):zcad032. doi: 10.1093/narcan/zcad032

Search in PMC
Search in PubMed
View in NLM Catalog
Add to search

© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of NAR Cancer.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com

PMC Copyright notice

Figure 8. — Shikonin blocks the HIFs-PKM2-PFKFB3 axis to exhibit anti-tumoral activity. (A) Immunohistochemistry analysis of CAIX, PKM2 and PFKFB3. Hypoxic regions marked by the strong membranous and/or cytoplasmic immunostaining for CAIX also exhibit strong expression of PKM2 and PFKFB3. (B) Normoxic regions of tumors indicated by a negative staining for CAIX also shows relatively poor expression of PKM2 and PFKFB3. Magnification used: 40×. (C) Quantification of CAIX, PKM2 and PFKFB3 for the normoxic and hypoxic regions of 18 breast cancer patients. (D) Immunoblot analysis of PFKFB3 upon treating triple negative breast tumor-derived cell line BC8322 with shikonin. (E) BC8322-derived organoid culture depicting significantly decreased spheroid diameter on shikonin treatment. (F) Schematic representation of the in vivo experimental protocol. (G) Representative tumor images from athymic nude mice bearing WT BBS MCF7-derived tumors and receiving DMSO (n = 4) or shikonin (n = 6) treatment. (H) Representative tumor images from athymic nude mice bearing BBS Mut MCF7-derived tumors and receiving DMSO (n = 5) or shikonin (n = 7) treatment. (I) Line graph depicting relative growth rate of WT BBS and BBS Mut MCF7 xenograft tumors. Tumor growth inhibition (TGI) is indicated. WT BBS MCF7 DMSO vs WT BBS MCF7 Shikonin, P = 0.045; BBS Mut MCF7 DMSO versus BBS Mut MCF7 Shikonin P = 0.68 (as calculated using Welch's t-test). (J) Box plot depicting AUC measurements of WT BBS and BBS Mut MCF7 xenograft tumors. WT BBS MCF7 DMSO vs WT BBS MCF7 Shikonin, P = 0.006; BBS Mut MCF7 DMSO vs BBS Mut MCF7 Shikonin, P = 1.0 (as calculated using t-test, combined with the Bonferroni P-value correction for multiple comparisons). For figures (A), (B), (D) and (E), representative images are provided. Error bars show mean values ± SD (n = 3 unless otherwise specified). As calculated using two-tailed Student's t-test, *P ≤ 0.05, **P ≤ 0.01, ***P ≤ 0.001, ****P ≤ 0.0001.