Figure 4. Effect of delphinidin treatment on human NSCLC tumor growth in athymic nude mice.

[A] Eighteen athymic (nu/nu) female nude mice were subcutaneously injected with 4x10⁶ NCI-H441 cells (in 50 µl RPMI + 50 µl Matrigel) in each flank of mouse to initiate tumor growth and then randomly divided into three groups (six mice in each). Twenty-four hours after cell implantation, mice of the first group received i.p. injection of DMSO (100 µl) and served as control. The mice of group 2 and 3 received i.p. injection of delphinidin 1 mg/animal and 2 mg/animal respectively in 100 µl of DMSO three times/week. [B] Similar experiments were performed with SK-MES-1 cells. Once tumors started to grow, their sizes were measured and tumor volume was calculated by the formula ½(L ₁ × L ₂ × H), where L ₁ is the long diameter, L ₂ is the short diameter, and H is the height of the tumor. All animals were sacrificed when tumors reached a volume of 1200 mm³ in the control group. Average tumor volumes of the control and delphindin treated groups were plotted over days after tumor cell inoculation. Values represent mean ± SEM. *p<0.05, **p<0.01, and ***p<0.001 versus control group.