Figure 4.

Nicotine treatment in mice bearing orthotopic patient-derived xenografts from pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma increased cachexia. (A) Patient-derived xenografts from patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma were implanted on the pancreata of NOD.Cg-Prkdc^scidIl2rg^tm1Wjl/SzJ (NSG) mice at 90 days of life. Intraperitoneal injections of 1 mg/kg nicotine or control (PBS) were given 3 days a week for 6 weeks. At endpoint, tumor-bearing mice treated with nicotine lost significantly more tumor-free weight than control and sham mice. (B) Nicotine-treated mice had larger tumors on average than control. (C) The tibialis anterior and (D) gastrocnemius complex muscles of the tumor-bearing nicotine-treated mice weighed significantly less than control-treated mice and sham mice.