Fig. 4.

Treatment of breast cancer metastasis using the 4T1 mammary model in mice. (a) The timeline of surgery and schedule of treatments are shown with respect to tumor inoculation. (b) The response of cancer metastasis to treatment was monitored using longitudinal BLI imaging. Representative images are shown for animals treated with DOX/RF, Lip/RF, nChain and nChain/RF. In the case of treatments combined with the RF field, 45 min post-injection, animals were exposed for 60 min to an RF field (amplitude B=6.3 mT, frequency f=10 kHz) using a custom-made solenoid coil. All nanoparticle formulations were administered at 0.5 mg/kg DOX, while free DOX was injected at 5 mg/kg. (c) Quantification of the whole body BLI light emission is shown for the nChain/RF treatment and control treatments including nChain, DOX/RF and Lip/RF. The inset shows the same plot with the y-axis being in logarithmic scale (n=7 mice in each group; * P<0.03 by Student’s t-test). (d) The survival time of the animals treated with nChain/RF, nChain, DOX/RF and Lip/RF is compared to that of the untreated group.