Research Article

Influence of Morphine on Pericyte-Endothelial Interaction: Implications for Antiangiogenic Therapy

Figure 3

Morphine stimulates tumor angiogenesis. C3TAG mice at 3 months of age were subcutaneously injected with morphine at 0.5 mg/Kg/d for 2 wks, and the dose was escalated every two weeks to 0.75 mg/Kg/d, 1.0 mg/Kg/d, 1.25 mg/Kg/d, and 1.5 mg/Kg/d, or with PBS, for a period of seven weeks. Sections of tumors larger than 1 cm × 0.5 cm were immunostained with anti-CD31-FITC, followed by morphometric analysis to quantify different parameters specific to tumor angiogenesis. (a) CD31-positive pixels indicate total pixels for CD31 immunostaining per image. (b) Length suggests the total length of vessels per image. (c) Ends denote the number of vessels per image. (d) Nodes suggest the number of branch points in an image. Each bar represents mean ± SEM of sections from five different tumors obtained from 5 different mice per treatment.
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