Figure 6. VERU-111 inhibits cervical tumor growth in xenograft mouse model.
A, Effect of VERU-111 on CaSki cells derived xenograft tumors in female athymic nude mice. In brief, 12 mice were used in this experiment and were divided into two groups. A total of 4× 106 CaSki cells were injected directly into the cervix of each mouse without any surgery. VERU-111 was administered (50 μg, intra-tumorally three times per week for three weeks) and control group mice received PBS as vehicle control. Representative mouse picture of control and VERU-111 -treated tumor bearing mouse (i). Average tumor volume of each group of mice at different days (ii). Bar graph representing tumor weight of each group of mice (iii). Body weights compared with the control group (iv). B. Effect of VERU-111 on expression of E6 (i), E7 (ii), p53 (iii), and p21 (iv) in treated or control excised tumors as determined by qRT-PCR analysis. C. Effect of VERU-111 on mRNA expression of cell cycle regulatory markers (i-ii). D. Pro-apoptotic markers (i-ii), anti-apoptotic markers (iii-v), and E. MMPs and their inhibitors (i-vi) in orthotopic xenograft tumor treated with VERU-111 as determined by qRT-PCR analysis. F. Effect of VERU-111 on the expression of miR-23b and miR-34a (i-ii) in orthotopic xenograft tumor treated with VERU-111 as determined by qRT-PCR analysis. Value in graph represents mean ± SE of six mice in each group. Asterisk (*) denotes the significant value P < 0.05.