Figure 7. γ-tocotrienol modulates the expression of various oncogenic biomarkers in tumor tissues.
A) Immunohistochemical analysis of Ki-67, VEGF, CD31, and cleaved caspase-3 showed the inhibition in expression of Ki-67, VEGF, and CD31 and increased levels of cleaved caspase-3 expression in γ-tocotrienol treated samples as compared with control group. Percentage indicates positive staining for the given biomarker. The photographs were taken at the magnification of 40 X. B) Western blot analysis of p-AKT, VEGF and cleaved caspase-3 proteins indicated a decrease in the expression of p-AKT and VEGF and increase in levels of cleaved caspase-3 expression in γ-tocotrienol treated samples as compared with control group. C) Effect of γ-tocotrienol on tumor-induced angiogenesis in-vivo. SCID mice were injected with 0.4 ml of Matrigel containing 5 × 106 single cell suspensions freshly derived from HCC patients (designated as HCC180811 and HCC 020113) and 20 units heparin with or without γ-tocotrienol (20 μg). Gross appearance of matrigel plugs retrieved from SCID mice 7 days post-injection were shown.