4 To detect the gelatinolytic activity of MMP-2, aliquots of TCM were

applied to acrylamide gel containing gelatin as described in the Supporting Materials and Methods. Semiquantitative RT-PCR was performed as described,4 using primers listed in Supporting Table 1. qPCR analysis of miR-29b was performed on a LightCycler 480 (Roche Diagnostics, Germany) using a TaqMan MicroRNA Assay kit (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA). All reactions were run in triplicate. The cycle threshold (Ct) values should not differ more than 0.5 among triplicates. The miR-29b level was normalized to RNU6B, which yielded a 2-ΔΔCt selleck inhibitor value. Antibodies for western blot: mouse mAb for AKT (cat. 2967) and phospho-ser473-AKT

(cat. 4051) (Cell Signaling Technology, CST, Beverly, MA); mouse mAb for ERK1/2 (cat. 610030), and phosphor-T202/Y204-ERK1/2 (cat. 612358) (BD Biosciences, Franklin Lakes, NJ); mouse mAb for MMP-2 (cat. MAB3308, Chemicon, Temecula, CA) and β-actin (cat. BM0627, Boster, Wuhan, China), rabbit polyclonal antibody against vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2) (cat. 2479) and phosphor-Tyr1175-VEGFR2 (cat. 2478s) from CST. Matrigel plug sections and paraffin-embedded tissue sections were applied to IHC using mouse mAb against human MMP-2 (cat. 35-1300Z, Invitrogen) or CD34 (cat. sc-52312, Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Santa Cruz, CA), or rat mAb for mouse CD34 (cat. 119301, BioLegend) as described in the Supporting Materials

selleck Florfenicol and Methods. MMP-2 expression was evaluated under a light microscope at a magnification of 400×. For each specimen, five images of representative areas were acquired and a total of 1,000 to 2,000 tumor cells were counted. For human samples, IHC scoring was performed using a modified Histo-score (H-score), which included a semiquantitative assessment of both fraction of positive cells and intensity of staining. The intensity score was defined as no staining (0), weak (1), moderate (2), or strong (3) staining. The fraction score was based on the proportion of positively stained cells (0%-100%). The intensity and fraction scores were then multiplied to obtain H-score, which ranged from 0 to 3 and represented the level of MMP-2. The microvessel density (MVD) in tumor tissues or Matrigel plug, which represents the degree of angiogenesis in vivo, was evaluated by staining for CD34, an endothelial cell marker. Any discrete cluster or single cell stained for CD34 was counted as one microvessel. The levels of VEGFA in TCM were detected by ELISA kits (R&D Systems), as instructed by the manufacturer. Data are expressed as the mean ± standard error of the mean (SEM) from at least three independent experiments. Values for capillary tube formation and luciferase activity assays were from three independent experiments performed in duplicate.