Fig. 6

Targeted SDF-1 inhibition suppresses EphA1-mediated HCC angiogenesis and EPCs’ homing process in vivo. HLE cells were injected in 6-week-old nude nu/nu (CD-1) mice to develop tumors. When a tumor mass was evident (14 days), Dil-ac-LDL-labeled EPCs were intravenously injected into the mice through the tail vein, as described in the Methods section. a Comparison of tumor growth between the IgG-Fc groups and ephrinA1-Fc groups (top panel) and the EphA1 expression levels in these two groups (bottom panel). b Comparison of tumor growth between the ephrinA1-Fc + SDF-1 scrRNA group and ephrinA1-Fc + SDF-1 siRNA group (top panel) the SDF-1 expression in these two groups (bottom panel): The tumor growth curves were obtained by measuring the tumor volume every 3 days. c Top: Representative photograph of the xenograft of HLE cells treated with ephrinA1-Fc to activate EphA1 expression and transfected with SDF-1 siRNA (top panel) or scrRNA (bottom panel); middle: IHC staining images of tumors from each group using anti-CD31 antibody; bottom: high-magnification cross-section images of one single vessel selected from the IHC image of the ephrinA1-Fc + SDF-1 siRNA group (indicated by the red box in the image in the middle panel). As the images indicate, EPCs labeled 1DiI (red) also express the EC marker CD31 (green) and are mainly located in the tumor vasculature (×200; scale bar, 50 μm). d Top: Microvascular density of HLE cells with ephrinA1-Fc-activated EphA1 expression transfected with SDF-1 siRNA (red bar) or scrRNA (black bar) in the xenografts; Bottom: Number of EPCs homing to the tumor vasculature of HLE cells with ephrinA1-Fc-activated EphA1 expression transfected with SDF-1 siRNA (red bar) or scrRNA (black bar) in the xenografts