Fig. 4

Curcumin suppresses gastric tumor growth in vivo. BALB/c-nu/nu were injected subcutaneously with 0.1 ml BGC cell suspension to create a xenograft assay of tumor growth, mock = mock surgery, vehicle = normal saline, curcumin (25 mg/kg), 6 mice/group (Methods); data reported as follows: a. Images of nude mice with xenograft showing site of graft. Effects of curcumin on tumor growth is presented as tumor volume changes with time (days). b. Mouse body weight. c. Tumor weight quantification. d & e. Live imaging and quantification of gastric tumor cells. f. Representative H&E stained histological image of gastric tumor cells. j. mtDNA copy number alteration of tumor tissues. h.Western blot analysis of apoptosis-related proteins, signaling pathways, and the mitochondrial respiration complex in tumor tissues, β-actin as loading control. The mouse tumors were collected and digested for isolation of primary tumor cells. The POLG was knockdown using siRNA, and cells evaluated for: i. mitochondrial respiration as determined by real-time mitochondrial oxygen consumption rate (OCR), n = 6 and j. aerobic glycolysis as determined by extracellular acidification rate (ECAR), n = 6; arrows indicate sequential injection of respiration complex modifiers as described in Fig. 2 (Methods). For A-C, E, G, I-J, data are shown as mean ± SD, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01 compared to mock or vehicle control