Figure 5
Effect of ATRA on the differentiation markers MUC-2 and alkaline phosphatase activity. SW480 cells were either 1) treated with 1 μM of the CysLT2R inhibitor AP 100984 (AP) and were or were not stimulated with 1 μM ATRA or 2) treated with RAR siRNA and stimulated with 10 μM ATRA. (A and B) qPCR for MUC-2. Data are normalized to HPRT-1 and changes in MUC-2 expression are relative to basal levels in untreated cells. (C) Confocal immunofluorescence microscopy showing ATRA-induced expression of Mucin-2 in SW480 colon cancer cells. After stimulation with 10 μM ATRA for 24 h the cells were fixed, permeabilized and stained with a Mucin-2 antibody. Left panels show Mucin-2 (MUC-2) staining, middle panels nuclear staining with DAPI and right panels merged, the graphs were taken with 40x objective. (D) Alkaline phosphatase activity in Caco-2 cells. Bars show % of ATRA-induces alkaline phosphatase activity and values are shown as mean ± SEM (*P < 0.05, **P < 0.01).