Journal: Cancer immunology, immunotherapy : CII

Article Title: Normalization of tumor vasculature by imiquimod: proposal for a new anticancer therapeutic indication for a TLR7 agonist.

doi: 10.1007/s00262-025-03943-2

Figure Lengend Snippet: Fig. 6 Suppression of angiogenesis by imiquimod. Growth factor reduced Matrigel™ with recombinant mouse fibroblast growth factor and different doses of IMQ was implanted into mice. Seven days later, intravenous perfusion with FITC-labeled isolectin B4 was used to label endothelium in Matrigel™ plugs (lectin+ vessels, 2–3 optical fields per tumor section which one consist 9 adjacent optical fields of view joined together; 5–6 plugs of each group were visualized, magnification 20 ×). Neovascularization was significantly reduced in Matrigel™ plugs with imiquimod, compared to control group (approx. twice when compared 10 µg and 100 µg of IMQ to control group and five times when compared 50 µg of IMQ to control group). A single dose of 50 µg of IMQ has the most antiangiogenic effect, as compared to the group of control mice. Representative photographs which were taken as a scan of 9 adjacent fields at 20 × magnification are shown. Nuclei stained with DAPI (blue), scale bar represents 200 µm. Each column in the graph represents a mean ± SEM. *p < 0.05 compared to IMQ_50 and control groups; *p < 0.05 compared to IMQ_10 and IMQ_100 groups/****p < 0.00001 compared to control group; evaluated by Kruskal–Wallis with multiple comparison of mean rank test

Article Snippet: Mice were injected subcutaneously, near the abdominal midline, with 500 μl of growth factor reduced MatrigelTM (BD Pharmingen, NJ, USA) containing 0.4 μg/ml of recombinant mouse fibroblast growth factor-basic (R&D Systems, Inc, MN, USA) [23] and imiquimod at a dose of 10 μg, 50 μg or 100 μg in 100 μl.

Techniques: Recombinant, Labeling, Control, Staining, Comparison