Figure 2

β-Elemene induced autophagy in MGC803 cells. (A) MGC803 cells stably expressing GFP-LC3 were treated with either 10 or 50 μg/mL β-elemene for 24 h, stained and observed under a fluorescence microscope as described in Materials and Methods. The percentage of cells with punctuate dots was represented with a histogram. Columns; mean of three independent experiments, bars: SD. (B) Cells were treated with 50 μg/mL β-elemene for 24 h, then harvested and subjected to transmission electron microscopy as described in Materials and Methods. (C) After the cells were exposed to 10 or 50 μg/mL β-elemene for 24 h, cell lysates were subjected to western blotting with an anti-LC3 antibody. The results were representatives of three independent experiments. Actin was used as loading control.