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Effects of basic fibroblastic growth factor on
the growth of human medulloblastoma xenografts
Pascal Vachon, Christiane Girard and Yves Théorêt
Département de
Biomédecine Vétérinaire (P.V.), Département de Pathologie (C.G.), Faculté
de Médecine Vétérinaire, Universit de Montréal, St-Hyacinthe, QC; Centre de
Recherche de l’Hôpital Ste-Justine (Y.T.),
Montréal, QC, Canada. pascal.vachon@umontreal.ca
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of basic fibroblastic
growth factor (bFGF) on the growth of human UM-MB1 medulloblastoma xenografts
injected intracranially in nude mice.
Under general anesthesia, a homogenous suspension of UM-MB1 cells (10(5)/10
microl) were injected in the caudoputamen nuclei of the right cerebral
hemisphere using a stereotaxic apparatus.
The treatment group (n = 9) received 10 microl of a bFGF solution (20 microg/ml)
at 3 and 6 days following the inoculation of the cells at the injection site
using the same stereotaxic coordinates.
The control group (n = 9) were injected intracranially with a phosphate-buffered
saline vehicle using a similar protocol.
Mice were sacrificed 3 weeks following the xenograft surgery and the brains were
prepared for histological observations as well as tumor volume
evaluations.
The mean volume of bFGF-treated tumors (mean volume +/- SD = 50.0 +/- 32.9 +/-
mm3) was significantly smaller than for the non-treated xenografts (mean volume
+/- SD = 199.0 +/- 42.1 mm3) (t-test, p < 0.001).
Compared to non-treated tumor cells, bFGF-treated medulloblastoma cells had a
greater cytoplasm volume and their nuclei contained more euchromatin suggesting
that bFGF may initiate differentiation.
In conclusion, our results suggest that bFGF may offer a new chemotherapeutic
modality for the treatment of medulloblastoma.
PMID: 15072461 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15072461
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