In each experiment the mice were divided into two groups with one group receiving doxycycline in their drinking water one day after tumor implantation. Mice were sacrificed when moribund and tumors, draining lymph nodes, lungs and pancreases removed for measurements and assessment of metastatic disease. One of the mice given doxycycline in the first experiment and two from the control group in the second experiment

died shortly after tumor implantation and therefore were excluded from this analysis. Tumors grew in all mice irrespective of whether they received doxycycline in their selleck drinking water. However, Fig. 3b demonstrates that tumors excised from doxycycline-treated mice weighed less (left panel) and were smaller in size (right panel) than tumors excised from control animals. As expected, all control mice had metastases in draining periaortic lymph

nodes as well as metastases in their lung in the majority of mice. A smaller subset also had disseminated disease to the pancreas (panel C). In contrast, treated mice had reduced frequency of metastasis to lymph nodes MDV3100 chemical structure and lungs with no metastases to the pancreas. These data suggest that even limited and transient expression of CCL21 in TRAMP TME suppresses primary tumor growth as well as metastatic disease to draining lymph nodes and distant organs. In vivo Tumor Growth is Associated with Methylation of CMV Promoter The data presented above demonstrated that the vast majority of TRAMPC2/TR/CCL21 tumor cells no longer displayed inducible CCL21 induction following orthotopic implantation. Two possibilities mechanisms were next considered to explain this observation: loss of the transgene or alternatively, silencing of

the promoter. To test the first possibility DNA was extracted from TRAMPC2/TR/CCL21-L2 tumor pieces and cloned lines isolated and expanded to generate sufficient DNA for PCR analysis using specific primers to amplify the transfected CCL21 gene. It is apparent from Fig. 4 (panel A) Silibinin that outgrowths obtained from orthotopic TRAMPC2/TR/CCL21 tumors still contained the CCL21 transgene. The absence of a product in the control mouse DNA confirmed that the primers did not amplify endogenous CCL21 gene (lane 9). To test the possibility that the promoter was silenced by methylation, we evaluated the methylation pattern of the CMV promoter. DNA isolated from tumor pieces or clonal lines were bisulfite treated and PCR reactions were performed using primers complementary to a region of CMV promoter not containing methylation sites (oligos 1) or a pair of primers complementary to a region of CMV promoter which contains methylation sites (oligos 2).