Fig. 3

CAPZ1 expression controls in vivo tumour growth. a Chest and abdomen MRI scans of nude mice after 6 weeks of orthotopic hepatoma xenograft growth. The livers of nude mice in the sh-CAPZA1-expressing HepG2 group and control MHCC97H group showed obvious metastatic lesions, but few metastatic lesions were found in the sh-control-expressing HepG2 group and CAPZA1-overexpressing MHCC97H group; no lung metastases occurred in the four groups. b There were many metastatic lesions on the liver surface of the sh-CAPZA1-expressing HepG2 group and control MHCC97H group, but the liver surface of the sh-control-expressing HepG2 group and CAPZA1-overexpressing MHCC97 group were smooth, and showed no metastatic lesions. c Haematoxylin and eosin staining was performed on xenograft sections. d, e The number of lesions was counted on the MRI cross sections. The number of metastatic lesions in the sh-CAPZA1-expressing HepG2 group was significantly higher than in the sh-control-expressing HepG2 group (d). The number in control MHCC97H group metastatic lesions was significantly higher than in the CAPZA1-overexpressing MHCC97 group (e). f, g Survival analysis of the mice after HCC cell transplantation. The survival time of mice in the sh-control-expressing HepG2 group was longer than that of mice in the sh-CAPZA1-expressing group (f). In the CAPZA1-overexpressing MHCC97H group survival time was longer than in the control MHCC97H group (g)