Selumetinib Inhibits Tumor Growth in LLC Mouse Model

All experimental animal protocols were approved by and used in compliance with the Indiana University School of Medicine Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. Eight-week old male C57BL/6J mice were obtained from The Jackson Laboratory. All mice were maintained on a regular light-dark cycle and allowed free access to food and water throughout the duration of the experiment. Mice were grouped as follows: Control + vehicle (n = 6), LLC + vehicle (n = 8), and LLC + Selumetinib (n = 8). Tumor bearing mice were subcutaneously injected with 10⁶ LLC cells in the intrascapular region on day 0, with treatments beginning 24 h later. Selumetinib (Selleckchem) in vehicle (0.5% methylcellulose/0.2% Tween 80) or vehicle alone was administered twice daily at 25 mg/kg by gavage (Shannon et al., 2009 (link); Troiani et al., 2012 (link); Huang et al., 2013 (link)). Body weights of the mice were recorded daily. Mice were euthanized under general anesthesia on day 17 when some mice reached the criteria for a humane endpoint. Muscles, tumors and organs were dissected, weighed, snap frozen in liquid nitrogen, and stored at −80°C. Tissue weights are expressed as a percentage of initial body weight to normalize for small differences in starting size.