Maprotiline Effects on Tumor Xenografts

The use and handling of animals were reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee for Animal Experiments of Jinan University. All experiments were approved by the Animal Research and Use Committee of Jinan University. The details were the same as those of the tumor xenograft experiments presented in our previous studies (Li et al., 2017 (link)). Nude mice (BALB/C nu/nu, 4–6 weeks old, female) reared under standardized conditions were purchased from GemPharmatech Co., Ltd. (Nanjing, Jiangsu, China). Huh7 cells in equal volumes of PBS and Matrigel were implanted subcutaneously into the flanks of nude mice. When the volume of the tumors reached approximately 50 mm³, the mice were randomly divided into three groups (n = 5) and treated with intraperitoneal injection of either PBS or maprotiline (20 mg/kg, 40 mg/kg) twice a week for three weeks. The mice were sacrificed after the treatment course, the tumors and blood for further tests were collected and properly stored. Cholesterol, alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), red blood cells (RBCs), white blood cells (WBCs), neutrophils, lymphocytes, hemoglobin (HGB) and platelets (PLTs) were measured by Servicebio Biotechnology Company (Wuhan, China).