Human antimicrobial protein hCAP18/LL-37 promotes a metastatic phenotype in breast cancer

Breast Cancer Research

Table 1 Survey of mouse tumours derived from hCAP18 overexpressing MJ1105 and its control.

Cell line	Mouse	Sacrificed day past inoculation	Primary tumour size (mm)	Metastases	Lymph nodes	Ascites with eGFP cells	eGFP cells in spleen	GFP cells in liver
MJ 1105- hCAP18	h1	43	6 × 6 × 6
	h2	71	10 × 8 × 8				+	+
	h3	71	8 × 8 × 8		3			+
	h4	75	8 × 8 × 8	3 abdominal	2	+
	h5	90	8 × 5 × 4		1
MJ1105 eGFP	I1	43	10 × 10 × 10
	I2	43	8 × 7 × 6
	I3	90	7 × 10 × 6
	I4	90	8 × 4 × 4		1

For statistical evaluation, each visible metastasis or node, or the presence of fluorescent cells in ascites/spleen or liver, are counted as one event each. Using the Mann-Whitney U-test, the median number of metastatic events between the groups is significant (p = 0.05). eGFP = enhanced green fluorescent protein.

ISSN: 1465-542X