Figure 2.

Ki67 and TUNEL expression in tumors treated with docetaxel and PSK. Mice with established prostate tumors were treated with oral saline daily, oral PSK (300 mg/kg) daily, i.p. docetaxel injection (2x weekly) or a combination of PSK and docetaxel for a period of 10–12 days. Tumors were stained for the Ki67 proliferation marker and TUNEL expression. Shown are representative staining results and summary graphs showing the number of tumor cells positive for each marker (mean ± SEM) viewed at magnification ×40 for a total of 10 views in each of 6–8 tumors (hpf, per high powered field; H&E, hematoxylin and eosin staining). Combining PSK with docetaxel induced a reduction in proliferating Ki67⁺ cells compared to docetaxel alone (p<0.05), and significantly enhanced the apoptotic, TUNEL⁺ cells compared to PSK alone (p<0.01) or docetaxel alone (p<0.05).