Figure 7.

Cryptolepine treatment inhibits the growth of melanoma xenografts in athymic nude mice. The tumor xenograft growth experiment was carried out for a total of 24 d, as detailed in Materials and Methods. (a) Tumor xenograft growth was monitored and is shown in terms of tumor volume/mouse as a mean ± SD (mm³), n = 5/group. (b) At the termination of the experiment, tumors were harvested and the wet weight determined. (c) ATP content was determined in each tumor lysate sample, as described in Materials and Methods. The data are presented in terms of percentage of the non-cryptolepine-treated group and expressed as mean ± SD. *P < 0.05, ^† P < 0.001. (d) Levels of proteins associated with mitochondrial biogenesis/dynamics were determined in lysates of the excised A375 melanoma tumor xenografts by western blot analysis. Each sample per group was prepared by mixing the tumor tissues from 2–3 tumors from different mice. Equal loading of proteins was verified by stripping the membrane and reprobing with anti-β-actin antibodies.