Figure 5

Effect of T-oligo and radiation therapy on spontaneous mammary carcinomas in vivo. (a) Photos of whole-mounted mammary glands. Panels show representative mammary gland/tumor harvested from mice injected with control-oligo (left side) and T-oligo (right side), respectively. After seven to eight injections, the mammary glands (chest area) of oligo-treated mice (n = 9) and untreated mice (n = 3) were irradiated with 3 Gy after being anesthetized with intraperitoneal administration of ketamine (75 mg/kg) and xylazine (5 mg/kg). The remaining oligo-treated and untreated mice (n = 3) that received no IR were used as control. The mice were sacrificed on Day 10 after irradiation and mammary glands were harvested, processed for whole mount and photographed. The dark nodules circled by red line are the mammary tumors. (b) Comparison of tumor size from the treated and control mice. The whole mount was digitized and the tumors were traced and measured using SPOT advanced software. Statistical analysis was performed using t-test. Untreated right (R) and left (L) chest mammary glands in mice receiving either 0 Gy or 3 Gy, were harvested and tumor size is presented separately to show the minimal and insignificant site variation. (c) TUNEL staining. The mammary tissues in panel A were fixed, sectioned and stained for apoptosis (60×). (d) The apoptotic (brown) cells were counted by two investigators and the percentage of apoptotic cells among each group (n = 3/group) was calculated and presented in bar graph. Statistical significance was determined by X²-test.