Fig 1

Characterization of THP1-derived M1- or M2-like macrophages when co-cultured with breast cancer cells for 5 days. a THP-1 cells were PMA-treated for 6 h, with addition of M1-polarizing or M2-polarizing cytokines during the final 66 h of treatment. Morphological changes in response to M1-trophic or M2-trophic cytokines stimuli. (Bar = 50 μm). b Flow cytometry based analysis of M0, M1 and M2 macrophages for HLA-DR, CD206 or CD68 expression. The grey background represents unstained control. c Flow cytometric analysis of the indicated markers on M0, M1 and M2 macrophage subsets by breast cancer cells co-culture. M0, M1 or M2 macrophages co-cultured with MCF-7 cells in serum-free hepatocyte maintenance medium (HMM) for 5 days, mono-cultured MCF-7 in their normal growth medium (RPMI 1640 with 10 % serum). CD206 and CD163 are both markers for M2 macrophages. HLA-DR is the marker for M1 macrophages. The blue line indicates mono-cultured MCF-7 cells, the purple line indicates M0 macrophages co-cultured with MCF-7 cells, the green line indicates M1 macrophages co-cultured with MCF-7 cells, the red line indicates M2 macrophages co-cultured with MCF-7 cells. Shown are represented of at least three independent experiments