Figure 5.

Intravital fluorescence microscopy visualization of LPPR5^OE vasculature. (a) Experimental set-up. (b) Exemplary images of vascular architecture in control and LPPR5^OE tumors 8 and 14 days after tumor cell implantation with placebo or sunitinib therapy, respectively (scale bar represents 60 µm). (c) The total vascular density (tVD) quantified in control and LPPR5^OE tumors found a significant therapeutic difference in control tumors at 14 days (* p = 0.0108) and a significant difference at 11 (** p = 0.0030, orange bar ** p = 0.0089) and 14 days (** p = 0.0014, orange bar * p = 0.0281) in LPPR5 tumors. (d) Functional vascular density (fVD) quantified in control and LPPR5 tumors showed a significant therapeutic difference in control tumors after 14 days (* p = 0.0300) and a significant difference after 11 (* p = 0.0439) and 14 (* p = 0.0436) days in LPPR5 tumors. (e) Perfusion index (PI, fVD/tVD) showed a significant difference in the LPPR5^OE group at 14 days (green bar ** p = 0.0041). (f) Diameter measurements found a reduction in the average diameter in the placebo-treated LPPR5 group compared with the sunitinib-treated LPPR5 at 14 days (** p = 0.0084). (g) The fraction of vessels smaller than 10 µm significantly decreased in the control tumors (11 days: *** p = 0.001; 14 days: *** p = 0.0002). LPPR5^OE tumors showed an increase in vessels smaller than 10 µm 14 days after tumor implantation (* p = 0.0194, green bar * p = 0.0190) (c–g): two-way ANAOVA analysis, with Sidak’s multiple comparisons test used for all statistics.