Figure 5
From: An novel role of sphingosine kinase-1 (SPHK1) in the invasion and metastasis of esophageal carcinoma
SPHK1 overexpression increased esophageal carcinoma spontaneous metastasis potential. SPHK1 overexpression increased EC9706 cell growth and spontaneous metastasis in nude mice. Several stable transfected clones were screened and two of them, (A) SPHK1-C17 and SPHK1-C24 were tested in animal experiments. (B, C) The SPHK1 gene promoted tumor growth and tumor burden in nude mice. SPHK1 significantly promoted growth of EC9706 xenografts (SPHK1-C17: 2.62 ± 1.12 cm3; SPHK1-C24: 2.78 ± 1.14 cm3) compared to transfected control (EC9706: 1.42 ± 0.854 cm3) or control EC9706 cells (EC9706-Ve: 1.35 ± 0.432 cm3, ANOVA P < 0.01, B and D). Expression of SPHK1 increased weight of tumors (SPHK1-C17: 2.42 ± 0.654 g; SPHK1-C24: 1.82 ± 0.542 g) compared to transfected control (EC9706: 1.12 ± 0.454 g) or control EC9706 cells (EC9706-Ve: 1.03 ± 0.434 g, ANOVA P < 0.01, C and D). We also observed that SPHK1 upregulation dramatically increased spontaneous lung metastasis of EC9706 cells (SPHK1-C17:7.42 ± 3.43 cm3; SPHK1-C24: 4.21 ± 1.34 cm3) compared to transfected control (EC9706: 1.34 ± 0.65 cm3) or control EC9706 cells (EC9706-Ve: 0.63 ± 0.064 cm3, ANOVA P < 0.05, A and D).