Figure 3

The effects of OSCs on cell cycle profile and apoptosis. A) The first two columns show representative cell-cycle profiles in normal WI38 and leukemic AML-3 cells after 48 hours of exposure to OSCs from each group (F2 at 200 μM, H5 at 200 μM, F6 at 80 μM). Cells were stained with propidium iodide and analyzed by flow cytometry. The percentage of cells staining in the pre-G1 region (apoptotic) is displayed in the upper left corner of each histogram. The third column shows TUNEL staining of leukemic KK cells after 48 hours of exposure to OSCs (F2 200 μM, H5 200 μM, F6 40 μM). The percentage of cells staining TUNEL positive (apoptotic) is displayed in the top right quadrant. B) The mean percentage of cells staining in pre-G1 region (apoptotic) was determined for AML-3 and WI38 cells. The ratio of these two values for each OSC is a proxy for their therapeutic ratio. A similar analysis was performed for KK cells (Additional File 1 Figure S2A). C) The mean percentage of cells staining TUNEL positive (apoptotic) was determined for each OSC in both KK and WI38 cells. The ratio of these two values is a proxy for their therapeutic ratio. A similar analysis was performed for AML-3 cells (Additional File 1 Figure S2B).