Figure 4.
Effect of Atg5 KO on hepatocarcinogenesis in mice treated with DEN. Wild-type and L-Atg5-KO mice were injected with DEN (5 mg/kg body weight) at 16, 23, 30 and 37 days of age. (a) Liver tumor incidence at 4, 6 and 8 months of age. **P<0.01. (b) H&E staining of a typical adenoma from 6-month-old L-Atg5-KO mice (left panel) and HCC from wild-type mice (right panel). The adenomas were well-circumscribed and consisted of sheets of hepatocytes with a bubbly vacuolated cytoplasm. The HCC of wild-type mice displayed a macrotrabecular pattern with clear-cell morphology and nuclear irregularity. (c) Immunoblot analysis of glypican-3. (Upper two panels) Eight liver tumor nodules were randomly selected from four wild-type mice for immunoblot analysis of glypican-3 and actin. Non-tumor tissues from two different wild-type mice were used as the controls. (Lower two panels) One liver tumor tissue was randomly selected from each of six L-Atg5-KO mice for immunoblot analysis. The non-tumor tissues of two wild-type mice and two L-Atg5-KO mice were also analyzed to serve as the controls