Fig. 1
EA retards tumor growth and pulmonary metastasis. a Tumor incidence ratios between the vehicle and EA-treated groups in the MMTV-PyMT mice were compared using a log-rank test, highlighting the median time and the hazard ratio in each curve for grainy, granules, pea, or tumor phenotypes, respectively (n = 10 mice, total of 100 glands); b Representative images of tumors dissected from the vehicle or the EA-treated mice by 15 weeks (left); The curve showed EA resulted in significant tumor growth retardation compared with control at mice ages ranging from 3th to 15th weeks (Upper right); Tumor volume in the vehicle group (1383.53 ± 81.10 mm3) showed a significant difference compared with the EA-treated group (731.53 ± 59.32 mm3) (Lower right); c Representative images of lungs dissected from the vehicle or the EA-treated mice from the 9th to 18th weeks of mice age. India ink staining was used to identify pulmonary metastatic nodules of each group. H&E staining was utilized to observe tumor micromorphology of each group with 40-fold magnification; d The number and volume of metastatic nodules were measured from the 9th to 18th weeks of mice age. The results indicated that EA significantly inhibited the number and volume of metastatic nodules; e Mice overall survival (OS, %) in the control and EA treatment groups is shown by the Kaplan-Meier curve; f The ALDEFLUOR assay was to identify the population of CSCs in the metastatic nodules of the vehicle or the EA-treated MMTV-PyMT mice. ALDHhi cells were significantly reduced in the EA-treated group (*P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, values represented as the Mean ± SD, n = 10)