Fig. 5

Assessment of intracellular ROS and antioxidant effect on ovarian cancer celles treated with BT cisplatin combination. Flow cytometry detection of intracellular ROS in A2780 and A2780-CDDP (a) or IGROV-1 and IGROV-1-CDDP (b) cells treated with BT or cisplatin alone or in combination. Data are presented as relative-fluorescence intensities in a 2-dimensional FACS profile (standardized gating, 20,000 events). Enhanced ROS generation is shown by shift in peaks. All experiments were performed in triplicate. c and d show the effect of the antioxidant ascorbic acid on the viability (via PrestoBlue) of A2780 and A2780-CDDP (c) or IGROV-1 and IGROV-1-CDDP (d) cells treated with BT or cisplatin alone or in combination. Control (untreated) cells were considered as 100% viable against which treated cells were compared. The results represent % viability recovery when compared with 100 μM BT-treated cells. Data were expressed as means ± SD of triplicate experiments. Comparisons between BT-cisplatin-treated in presence of ascorbic acid vs. combination-treated in the absence of ascorbic acid for each cell line were performed using Student’s t–test. Asterisks (*) indicate p < 0.05