Fig. 5.

Therapeutic effects of lentivirus-mediated circAGO2 knockdown in vivo. a The in vivo growth curve (left lower panel), representative images (middle panels), and weight at the end points (right panel) of xenografts formed by subcutaneous injection of AGS cells into the dorsal flanks of athymic nude mice (n = 5 for each group) and received intratumoral injection of lentivirus (LV)-mediated scramble shRNA (sh-Scb) or sh-circAGO2 #1 as indicated (left upper panel). b Representative images (left panel) and quantification (right panel) of immunohistochemical staining revealing the expression of Ki-67 and CD31 within subcutaneous xenografts following intratumoral injection of lentivirus-mediated sh-Scb or sh-circAGO2 #1. Scale bar: 50 μm. c, d Real-time qRT-PCR (c, normalized to β-actin) and western blot (d) assays indicating the expression of target genes EIF4EBP3, HNF4A, MAP4K1, NOTCH4, SLC2A4, and SLC44A4 within xenografts (n = 5 for each group) following intratumoral injection of lentivirus-mediated sh-Scb or sh-circAGO2 #1. e Representative images (upper panel), HE staining (middle panel), quantification of lung metastatic colonization (lower left panel), and survival curves (lower right panel) of nude mice (n = 5 for each group) treated with tail vein injection of AGS cells and subsequent administration of lentivirus-mediated sh-Scb or sh-circAGO2 #1 as indicated (upper panel). Scale bar: 100 μm. Student’s t test and analysis of variance compared the difference in a–c and e. Log-rank test for survival comparison in e. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01 vs. LV-sh-Scb