Fig. 2

Short-term treatment with IL-12-LNP significantly slows down HCC progression. a Serial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of primary transgenic mice bearing MYC-driven HCC that were either administered control NST-LNP (n = 20) or IL-12-LNP (n = 20) intravenously at weeks 0, 1, 2 and 3 post treatment. Representative images of one mouse in each group are shown for the indicated time points. b Comparison of HCC progression (tumor burden) as computed by MRI after treatment with control (NST-LNP, n = 20) or IL-12 (IL-12-LNP, n = 20) oligonucleotides for three weeks. Tumor burden for each time point represented as mean ± SEM. c Box plots depicting absolute HCC burden in individual mice before starting treatment with IL-12-LNP (n = 20) or NST-LNP (n = 20) controls (week 0), as computed by MRI. d Box plots depicting absolute HCC burden in individual mice at the end of short-term treatment with IL-12-LNP (n = 20) or NST-LNP (n = 20) controls (week 3), as computed by MRI. e Box plots depicting fold change in HCC burden of individual mice at week 3 with respect to initial tumor burden before beginning treatment (week 0) between NST-LNP and IL-12-LNP treated groups. P-values were calculated using Student’s t-test. P values: ns = not significant, * p < 0.05, *** p < 0.001, **** p < 0.0001. f Morphology of livers isolated from control (NST-LNP, n = 20) and IL-12-treated (IL-12-LNP, n = 20) HCC mice at week 3 post treatment. Three representative images are shown from each group