The radiation dose to the lung and the scattered dose to areas of the mouse outside of the radiation field were carefully monitored. PLX-4720 price Photon irradiation was performed at a dose of 10 Gy with a Siemens Stabilipan X-ray set (Siemens Medical Systems, Inc) operated at 250 kV, 15 mA with

1 mm copper filtration at a distance of 47.5 cm from the target. A high dose of radiation of 10 Gy was selected for these studies with the rationale that such a dose could inflict greater damage to normal lung tissue and will allow for evaluation of potential injury aggravation by axitinib. Axitinib (Pfizer Inc, New York, NY), was prepared in a carboxymethyl cellulose suspension vehicle, and given orally by gavage at a dose of 25 mg/kg (0.5 mg/mouse) per day, once a day. The dose was selected to give an intermediate effect for combination with radiation, based on previous titration studies [20]. As previously reported, to monitor tumor establishment in the lungs of mice, preliminary kinetics experiments were performed and mice were sacrificed at different time points after i.v. injection of A549 cells [31] and [32]. Lungs were resected and processed for histological staining

with hematoxylin-eosin (H&E). Established tumor nodules of about 100-300 μm in diameter were detected by day 17-18 in the midst of the lung tissue, therefore this time point was selected to initiate treatment with axitinib. Tumor bearing selleck screening library mice were pre-treated with axitinib

for 4 days from day 17-20 (Table 1A). Then, on day 21, the full lung was selectively irradiated by delivering GBA3 10 Gy to the thorax while shielding the rest of the mouse body with lead. Axitinib treatment was resumed at 25 mg/kg/day and given 5 days a week for 5 more weeks (Table 1A). At this time point, axitinib was discontinued in half of the mice whereas the other half of the mice received 5 more weeks of axitinib. The number of mice per treatment group was 8 in control, 8 in axitinib, 9 in radiation and 9 in radiation + axitinib. To assess the therapeutic response of lung tumors to axitinib and radiation, mouse survival was monitored in a long-term experiment of about 3 months. Mice exhibiting weight loss, lethargy or gross metastases in the limbs were killed and lungs were perfused with 10% buffered formalin prior to resection. Formalin fixed lungs were embedded in paraffin and sectioned into 5 μm sections. Sections were stained with (H&E). Quantitation of histological findings was performed by evaluation of lung tissues using a Nikon E-800 microscope. The number of nodules in the five lobes of the mouse lungs was enumerated. Morphometric measurements of each tumor nodule were performed using Image-ProPlus version 6.2 software (MediaCybernetics) [31]. The two largest diameters of each nodule were measured and computed to estimate the nodule surface area.