Fig. 6.
Intestine-specific K8 deletion sensitizes mice to chemically induced tumorigenesis in the distal colon. K8flox/flox and K8flox/flox; Villin-Cre mice were intraperitoneally injected with 10 mg/kg of AOM once per week for 4 weeks (arrows in A) and then killed after 20 weeks. A K8flox/flox and K8flox/flox; Villin-Cre body weight changes during AOM treatment are shown as average ± SD and # indicates onset and occurrence of soft stool and blood in the stool of K8flox/flox; Villin-Cre mice. B The average number of colonic tumors per genotype from four mice per genotype where boxes extend from the 25th to 75th percentiles, line represents median expression value and whiskers represent min and max values with individual values represented as dots. C The number of K8flox/flox; Villin-Cre mouse tumors and size (volume calculated and shown as log scale mm3). D Representative images of distal colon after AOM treatment from K8flox/flox and K8flox/flox; Villin-Cre are shown. E HE-stained colon images show the epithelial origin of tumors, where arrows represent the tumor areas. Scale bar 100 μm. F Serum concentrations for IL-6, IL-18, IL-22 and TNFα were measured in K8flox/flox and K8flox/flox; Villin-Cre mice. Error bars represent SD with individual mice represented as dots. P values and asterisks (*P < 0.05 and **P < 0.01) represent statistical difference calculated using Student’s t test. n = 4–5