Axioskop2 upright fluorescence microscope

Four-week-old male SCID mice were purchased from the BioLASCO Taiwan Co., Ltd. (Taipei, Taiwan) and housed and maintained in controlled, specific pathogen–free airflow cabinets. The mice were given water and standard chow ad libitum and kept on a 12 h light/dark cycle. All animal procedures were performed according to approved protocols and in compliance with the recommendations for proper care and use of laboratory animals of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of National Chung Cheng University.
Ten million Toledo cells were subcutaneously inoculated into each SCID mouse. After 1 month, the Toledo tumor–bearing mice were intravenously injected with gfp-VLPs at 105 μg per injection every three days, six times in total. The VLP inoculation dosage was determined by titration at the beginning of the study. After the entire course of VLP treatment was completed (18 days after the first VLP injection), the mice were anesthetized and their tumor nodules were removed and embedded in optimum cutting temperature compound (Sakura Finetek USA, Inc., Torrance, CA). Frozen section was performed to give slices of 6 um thickness. Green fluorescent protein expression was detected with a ZEISS AXioskop2 upright fluorescence microscope (Carl Zeiss, Thornwood, NY).

A549 cells were injected subcutaneously into the right flank of a mouse as described above. gfp-VLP were injected through tail vein every other day for 6 times in total. The mouse was anesthetized and the tumor nodule was removed and embedded in optimum cutting temperature compound (Sakura Finetek USA, Inc., Torrance, CA). Cryosectioning was performed to give slices of 10 μm thickness. Fluorescent protein expression was detected with a ZEISS AXioskop2 upright fluorescence microscope (Carl Zeiss, Thornwood, NY).