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Updated: May 18, 2026

Establishing a Physiologic Human Vascularized Micro-Tumor Model for Cancer Research
Published on: September 15, 2023
Primo vessel inside a lymph vessel emerging from a cancer tissue
Sungwoo Lee1, Yeonhee Ryu, Jinmyung Cha
1Nano Primo Research Center, Advanced Institute of Convergence Technology, Seoul National University, Suwon, South Korea.
Abstract:
Primo vessels were observed inside the lymph vessels near the caudal vena cava of a rabbit and a rat and in the thoracic lymph duct of a mouse. In the current work we found a primo vessel inside the lymph vessel that came out from the tumor tissue of a mouse. A cancer model of a nude mouse was made with human lung cancer cell line NCI-H460. We injected fluorescent nanoparticles into the xenografted tumor tissue and studied their flow in blood, lymph, and primo vessels. Fluorescent nanoparticles flowed through the blood vessels quickly in few minutes, and but slowly in the lymph vessels. The bright fluorescent signals of nanoparticles disappeared within one hour in the blood vessels but remained much longer up to several hours in the case of lymph vessels. We found an exceptional case of lymph vessels that remained bright with fluorescence up to 24 hours. After detailed examination we found that the bright fluorescence was due to a putative primo vessel inside the lymph vessel. This rare observation is consistent with Bong-Han Kim's claim on the presence of a primo vascular system in lymph vessels. It provides a significant suggestion on the cancer metastasis through primo vessels and lymph vessels.
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