Figure 6.

Transient FVIII expression in hepatocytes causes liver tumors in mice in the context of high-fat diet (HFD) feeding

Wild-type C57BL/6J male mice were injected with pMT vector, pMT-N6 or pMT-BDD DNA vectors by hydrodynamic tail vein injection.

(A) Plasma FVIII levels at 24 h after vector DNA injection. Data shown are mean ± SE (n = 4 for pMT and pMT-BDD, n = 5 for pMT-N6). (B) Incidence of liver tumors in pMT-BDD- or pMT-N6-injected mice after a 65-week-HFD treatment. The difference between the two groups (i.e., pMT-N6, n = 12 and pMT-BDD, n = 10) were tested for statistical significance using the χ² test (degrees of freedom = 1, 95% confidence intervals). (C) HCC but not adenoma exhibited positivity for glutamine synthase staining. Both tumor tissue (T) and non-tumor tissue (N) are shown in the high-magnification images.