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. 2013 Sep 13;8(9):e74407. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0074407

Figure 4. In vivo GFP-LC3 analysis revealed higher level of autophagy in metastatic colony as compared with primary tumor.

Figure 4

(A) Establishment of mouse model of pulmonary metastasis using HCCLM3-GFP-LC3 cells and fluorescence microscopic analysis of GFP-LC3-expressing lung metastasis and primary tumor. (B) Primary HCC tumors showed low level of autophagy. (C, D) Pulmonary metastatic colonies displayed significantly higher level of autophagy than primary tumors. And early metastatic colonies (C) displayed higher autophagic activity than late-stage metastatic foci (D). Autophagy was quantified by measuring the number of GFP-LC3 dots / GFP-LC3-expressing area. White arrows indicate GFP-LC3 dots.