Figure 1.

Effect of enforcing IRX1 on peritoneal spreading and metastasis. A 0.1-ml suspension (2 × 10⁶ cells/ml) per mouse was injected into peritoneal cavity or caudal vena. (a) The peritoneal nodules were markedly suppressed in IRX1 overexpression group, compared with mock or controls (1.0±0.70 vs 4.2±0.83, 4.4±1.14, *P<0.001). (b) Metastatic cancer mass is easily observed microscopically in mock or controls, compared with experimental animal (the tumor is indicated with arrow, the bar indicates 50 μm). In IRX1 overexpression group, 2 out of 15 mice show tumorigenicity in lung, which is significantly lower than that in mock (11/15) and controls (10/15) (P=0.002).