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Figure 5 | Molecular Cancer

Figure 5

From: Twist1 expression induced by sunitinib accelerates tumor cell vasculogenic mimicry by increasing the population of CD133+ cells in triple-negative breast cancer

Figure 5

Hypoxia induces VM-like channel formation by up-regulating the expression of proteins associated with VM and by generating MDA-MB-231 CSCs. A) Matrigel cell culture under a CoCl2-induced hypoxia. MDA-MB-231 cells formed VM-like channels (arrow) on Matrigel under normoxia, and more VM-like channels (arrows) were formed after reoxygenation. In contrast, hypoxia and reoxygenation did not affect VM-like channel formation by MCF-7 cells. B) Western blot analysis shows that hypoxia and reoxygenation induced and inhibited HIF-1α expression, respectively, in MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 cells. However, reoxygenation induced the expression of Twist1 and VE-cadherin only in MDA-MB-231 cells. C) Representative FACS analyses of the CD133+ populations of MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 cells in normoxia and hypoxia. The arrow shows the increase in the CD133+ population under hypoxia. D) Quantification of the CD133+ population under normoxia and hypoxia. E) MDA-MB-231 cells formed a VM-like channel on Matrigel in normoxia and were CD133-. The MDA-MB-231 cells that survived hypoxia were spherical, similar to stem cells and expressed CD133 (arrowheads). The tumor cells that line the VM channels were CD133+ (arrows), whereas the cells far from VM were CD133-. The scale bar = 100 μm, and the error bar indicates the SD.

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