Euthanasia In order to document the time-course of the disease,

particularly the development of metastasis, one animal per group was euthanized per week starting at two weeks post-inoculation of cells into the eye. The selection criterion was based on the appearance of the animal, signs of CsA toxicity and veterinary recommendations. The remaining rabbits (n = 4) were sacrificed at the end of the experiment. The method of euthanasia was exsanguination by cardiac puncture following anesthesia using intramuscular ketamine-xylazine check details (35 mg/kg-5 mg/kg). An autopsy was performed on every animal that was sacrificed. The enucleated eyes and other organs with possible metastatic disease such as lungs, livers and kidneys were collected,

macroscopically examined and preserved in 10% phosphate buffered formalin. Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded sections of the collected specimens were stained with hematoxylin and eosin for histopathologic Blasticidin S order assessment. Re-Culturing of Cells Post-Euthanasia The right eye of each rabbit was processed prior to formalin fixation in order to acquire a fresh tumor sample from each rabbit. Cells were cultured in a 6-well plate in 5% FBS supplemented RPMI and grown to confluence before seeding for proliferation assay experiments. All blood collected from cardiac puncture of rabbits during euthanasia was processed via the Ficoll-Paque™ Plus Method (Amersham Biosciences) in order to harvest and culture the buffy coat. This was done in order to capture and document presence of circulating malignant cells (CMCs) throughout the duration of the experiment. CMCs were allowed to adhere

Methocarbamol to the bottom of the 6-well plate, while remaining non-adherent white blood cells were washed off during subsequent media changes. CMCs were allowed to grow to confluence prior to seeding the proliferation assays. All re-cultured cells (primary tumors, CMCs) were passaged only once in order to maintain any phenotypic changes these cells may have acquired in vivo. Immunohistochemistry Immunohistochemistry was performed using the Ventana BenchMark fully automated machine. The fully automated processing of bar code labeled slides included baking of the slides, solvent-free deparaffinization, and CC1 (Tris/EDTA buffer pH 8.0) antigen retrieval. Slides were incubated with a mouse monoclonal anti-human Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen (PCNA) selleck chemical antibody (dilution 1:200; Dako Canada Inc., Mississauga, Ontario; Clone PC10) for 30 min. at 37°C, followed by application of biotinylated secondary antibody (8 min. at 37°C) and an avidin/streptavidin enzyme conjugate complex (8 min at 37°C). Finally, the antibody was detected using the Fast Red chromogenic substrate and counterstained with hematoxylin. As positive controls, sections of human small intestine and colon were used for the PCNA antibody.