Fig. 1
Experimental design and comparison of antitumor performance across different treatments. a A total of 34 mice were divided into six groups. Specifically, in addition to the healthy controls (HC, mice without PC-9 incubation or any treatment, n = 4), blank controls (LUAD, tumor-bearing mice without any treatment, n = 6), and gefitinib treatment alone (TKI, n = 6), we administered three combinational therapies, e.g., gefitinib plus antibiotic (TKI + ANT, n = 6), gefitinib plus probiotic (TKI + PRO, n = 6), and gefitinib plus Traditional Chinese Medicine (TKI + TCM, n = 6), separately to tumor-bearing mice on day 7. At baseline (day 0), approximately 5 × 10.6 PC9 cells were subcutaneously inoculated into the right flanks of mice except for the healthy controls (HC). Daily oral gavage of gefitinib and combinational therapies were administrated 7 days after tumor inoculation when the diameter of the tumor reached about 3 mm. Stool samples, tumor volumes, and body weights were collected or measured every 7 days from the baseline (day 0) to the end of the trial (day 35). Different colors refer to different combination treatments, e.g., pink for antibiotics, yellow for TCM, and green for probiotics. b The trajectories of tumor volume in different groups. In the left panel, the development of tumors in the LUAD group is compared with the TKI group, while the right panel illustrates the comparison of tumor volume between combinational therapies (TKI + ANT, TKI + PRO, TKI + TCM) and TKI at each time point. In particular, compared to TKI, the development of the tumor volume in the TKI + PRO and TKI + TCM groups was suppressed from day 21 to day 35. Although no treatment could maintain a comparable body weight development to the healthy controls, the mice in the TKI + PRO and TKI + TCM groups did not lose weight, while the body weight decreased in the TKI group and (even more dramatically) in the TKI + ANT group; c The trajectories of body weight in different groups. The fitting line for each group was generated using the LOWESS (Locally Weighted Scatterplot Smoothing) method. d The boxplots illustrate the comparison of tumor marker test results (CEA, CYP-19, and NSE) among different groups at the end of the trial. Significance levels: p-value < 0.05 (*), < 0.01 (**), < 0.001 (***), NS non-significance