Fig. 2

Antineoplastic effect of deferasirox is totally abolished in glioblastoma cells under mild-hypoxic conditions. The number of nuclei of U251 (a) and U87 (d) glioblastoma cells cultivated at 3 % of oxygen in untreated condition (CONT) or 3 days after treatment with 5 μM of ferric ammonium citrate (FAC), or with 10 μM of deferasirox and 5 μM of FAC (DFX + FAC) or with 10 μM of deferasirox (DFX) in non-irradiated condition (0 Gy) or following irradiation with 16 Gy (16 Gy). The numbers of nuclei are expressed as mean ± standard deviation (SD) (n = 3). Measure of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release into cell culture medium of U251 (b) and U87 (e) glioblastoma cells cultivated at 3 % of oxygen in untreated condition (CONT) or 3 days after treatment with 5 μM of ferric ammonium citrate (FAC), or with 10 μM of deferasirox and 5 μM of FAC (DFX + FAC) or with 10 μM of deferasirox (DFX) in non-irradiated condition (0 Gy) or following irradiation with 16 Gy (16 Gy). Cytotoxicity is expressed as mean percentage ± standard deviation (SD) (n = 3) of the total amount of LDH released from cells and relative to glioblastoma cells treated 0.1 % Triton X-100, given the arbitrary percentage of 100. DEVD-AMC caspase 3 activity in U251 (c) and U87 (f) glioblastoma cells cultivated at 3 % of oxygen in untreated condition (CONT) or 3 days after treatment with 5 μM of ferric ammonium citrate (FAC), or with 10 μM of deferasirox and 5 μM of FAC (DFX + FAC) or with 10 μM of deferasirox (DFX) in non-irradiated condition (0 Gy) or following irradiation with 16 Gy (16 Gy). Caspase 3 activity is expressed as mean arbitrary units (AU) of fluorescence per 30 μg of proteins ± standard rrror of the mean (SEM) (n = 3). One-way ANOVA was performed between DFX treatment and CONT, FAC or DFX + FAC conditions in non-irradiated (0 Gy) or irradiated (16 Gy) conditions (^*, p-value ≤0.05). Two-way ANOVA was performed between non-irradiated (0 Gy) condition and irradiated (16 Gy) condition (^$, p-value ≤0.05; ^$$$, p-value ≤0.001)