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Fig. 2 | BMC Cancer

Fig. 2

From: Mitochondrially targeted vitamin E succinate efficiently kills breast tumour-initiating cells in a complex II-dependent manner

Fig. 2

Breast TICs are resistant to chemotherapeutic drugs but sensitive to MitoVES. Adherent and sphere NeuTL (A) and MCF7 cells (B) were exposed to different concentrations of the agents for 24 h and viability assessed by the MTT assay. (C) NeuTL adherent and sphere cells were exposed to 50 μM α-TOS or 2 μM MitoVES for 24 h and inspected by light microscopy. Adherent or sphere NeuTL (D) or MCF7 cells (E) were exposed to α-TOS (50 μM), MitoVES (2 μM) or parthenolide (PTL; 10 μM) for 12 h and apoptosis evaluated using the annexin V/PI method. (F) Adherent NeuTL cells were exposed to 2 μM MitoVES for 24 h and evaluated for cell cycle distribution. (G) NeuTL sphere and adherent cells were exposed to 5 μM MitoVES for 12 h and full length and cleaved PARP, caspase-9 (C9), caspase-3 (C3) and caspase-8 assessed using WB with actin as loading control. The level of full length and cleaved proteins was evaluated by densitometry and related to actin. Data are mean values ± S.D. (n = 3). The symbol ‘*’ in panels A, B, D-F indicates statistically significant differences for adherent and sphere cells with p < 0.05. The symbol ‘*’ in panel G indicates statistically significant differences in the expression of the full length and cleaved protein with p < 0.05. Images in panel C are representative of three independent experiments

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