Fig. 1.

Pancreatic spheroids inhibit orthotopic tumor growth of co-transplanted PDAC tumors. (A) H&E staining, HLA (200X, scale bar 100 μm) and Ki67 (400x, scale bar 50 μm) immuno-staining of human pancreatic spheroids (HPs) transplanted in the pancreas of immunodeficient mice at 7 and 28 days after HPs injection. (B) Double immunofluorescence of anti-human vimentin (mesenchymal cells) and anti-cytokeratin (epithelial cells). Black arrow indicates human epithelial cells co-expressing cytokeratin and vimentin 7 days after HPs injection. White arrows indicate human vimentin-expressing fibroblasts (400x, scale bar 100 μm). (C) Human (HPs) and murine (MPs) pancreatic spheroids inhibit orthotopic tumor growth of co-transplanted PDAC tumors. Tumor weight at euthanasia (MIAPaCa2 61 days post-injection, HuPa4 136 days post-injection, FC1199 14 days post-injection). The mean weight of a healthy pancreas is indicated by the dotted line (mean ± SEM; 5 for each group, one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s multiple comparison test, *p < 0.05,**p < 0.005, ***p < 0.0005). (D-E) Ki67 immunostaining and quantification of tumor cell proliferation at euthanasia (400X, scale bar 50 μm) (mean ± SEM; 4 for each group, Mann-Whitney, *p < 0.05,**p < 0.005)