Figure 1.

Immature DCs are enriched in fast-growing angiogenic tumors. A) Light micrographs showing explants of a fast-growing angiogenic human MDA-MB-436 breast cancer and an avascular dormant tumor after growth subcutaneously in mice for 28 d. Scale bars = 1 cm. B) Scatterplot of data obtained from flow cytometric analysis of cells after they were enzymatically digested from the spleen and from a vascularized breast cancer specimen, and stained with anti-CD11c and anti-IA/IE (MHCII) antibodies. Note the CD11c⁺MHCII⁺ DCs in both spleen and tumor. C) Histograms of MHCII expression on tumor infiltrating DCs (box and asterisk indicate DCs that were gated as CD11c⁺FSC^high cells) isolated from angiogenic cancers compared to avascular tumors; note that avascular tumors exhibit less immature DCs that express lower levels of MHCII. Data are representative of 4 separate experiments.