Athymic nude nu j mice

All experiments were conducted in accordance with general guidelines in the protocol approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) at Meharry Medical College. The facilities and laboratory animals programs at Meharry Medical College are accredited by the Association for the Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care. The IACUC ensured that animal related experiments adhered to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) guidelines for the humane care and use of laboratory animals. The 5 to 6 week old female Nu/J athymic nude mice were obtained from Jackson Laboratories. Suspensions of control, AnxA6 down-regulated and AnxA6 deficient BT-549 cells (1 × 10⁶ viable cells/100 μl)or control and AnxA6 expressing HCC1806 cells (2 × 10⁶ viable cells/100 μl) were subcutaneously injected into the mammary fat pads of the mice (n = 8). Tumor growth was monitored by bi-weekly measurement of tumor volume. Mice were euthanized at the end of the experiment or when tumors were ~2,000 mm³. Tumor tissues were processed for H&E and immunohistochemical staining according to standard procedures.

Female, 8–10 wk old, C57Bl/6 J wild-type (strain #000664), C57Bl/6 J p53^KO (#002101), and athymic nude NU/J mice (#002019) were purchased from The Jackson Laboratory. Mice were housed at ambient room temperature (74 ± 2 °F) with humidity of 30–70% and a light/dark cycle of 14 h/10 h. Tumor burden did not exceed 1.5 cm³. Maximal tumor burden and all other aspects of animal experiments were performed in accordance with the guidelines of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. The human 293 T cells line for viral preparation was purchased from ATCC. 293 T were grown in DMEM, supplemented with glutamine, 10% fetal bovine serum (Gibco), 100 IU/ml penicillin, and 100 μg/ml streptomycin (Gibco). Cells were cultured in an incubator at 37 °C and 5% CO₂.