Fig. 7.

Effects of everolimus on advanced leukemia in vivo. Mice were injected in the tail vein with 1x10⁶ PDX9, PDX13, or PDX19 cells (totals of 24, 20, and 24 mice, respectively). When PDX cells in the peripheral blood reached ≥30% of the PBMC, the mice were treated with either drug vehicle, dexamethasone (15 mg/kg), everolimus (4 mg/kg), or with dexamethasone (15 mg/kg) plus everolimus (4 mg/kg); treatments were repeated every second day. (A) Effects of drug treatments on numbers of circulating PDX cells. The graphs show the percentages of CD5+/CD7+ PDX cells in total PBMC measured over the course of the experiment. The red arrows indicate the beginning of the treatment. (B) Scatter plots show results of flow cytometry analyses to detect tumor cells in peripheral blood at the time of sacrifice. Each scatter plot shows results for one mouse; a reduction in the percentage of events in the B++ quadrant indicates an inhibitory effect of the drug treatment. (C) Bar graphs show the percentages of CD5+/CD7+ PDX cells in total PBMC (left) and spleen weights (right), an indicator of the tumor burden in lymphoid organs. Plotted are mean values and standard error bars from 6 mice in each group. The indicated pairwise comparisons were statistically significant with the Mann-Whitney test (*** indicates p values < 0.001, ** <0.01 and * < 0.05). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)