EPOR is expressed in human lung ADC cell lines but exogenous rHuEPOα does not modify ADC cell proliferation in vitro.

<p>(A) Real-time qRT-PCR demonstrating the expression of EPOR mRNA in human lung ADC cell lines and K562 and HUVEC cells as control. The highest EPOR expression level was detected in the H1975 ADC cell line. H1975 (B), H1650 (C) and H358 (D) cells were treated with rHuEPOα at different concentrations (1, 3 IU/ml) with or without gemcitabine (1, 10 µg/ml). Cell numbers were estimated at 48 hours by sulforhodamine B colorimetric assay. Although gemcitabine significantly decreased the proliferation of ADC cells (<i>p</i> < 0.001), rHuEPO treatment (either alone or in combination with gemcitabine) did not modify ADC cell proliferation in vitro. </p

Low EPOR expression is associated with poor prognosis in advanced stage human pulmonary adenocarcinoma.

<p>(A) Kaplan-Meier curves for the overall survival of the entire patient population with stage III-IV ADC (n = 43), according to high and low EPOR expression as determined by the ratio of tumor and normal bronchoscopy brush EPOR mRNA expressions based on quantitative real-time PCR. </p

Effect of rHuEPOα and gemcitabine treatments on the proliferation of endothelial and tumor cells in H1975 xenograft tumors.

<p>Representative immunofluorescent images of tumors from control (A) and rHuEPOα-treated (B) mice. Tumor sections are stained for the endothelial marker, CD31 (green), the proliferation-associated marker, BrdU (red) and for TOTO-3 (blue) highlighting EC as well as tumor cell nuclei. Arrows in (B) point at proliferating endothelial cells. (C) Labeling index of tumor and endothelial cells in 33-day-old rHuEPOα-treated or control H1975 tumors. *<i>p</i> = 0.021, versus controls; **<i>p</i> < 0.001, versus controls. </p