Fig. 4

Cellular viability and apoptosis in freshly resected, control and treated thyroid tumour tissue. Cellular ability to prevent both PI (a) and TB (b) transit across the plasma membrane was employed as a proxy of viability (n = 3, mean + SEM). No significant difference was observed between fresh and untreated control thyroid tissue. c: Terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labelling in both fresh (+ 0 h) and post-culture (+ 96 h) malignant thyroid tissue explants demonstrated no difference in the proportion of apoptotic cells in post-culture specimens (n = 9; 2.78 vs. 5.59%, p = 0.51 [paired t-test]). Treatment of cultured thyroid explants with etoposide and SP600125 resulted in a significant increase in apoptosis (15.25 and 14.24%, respectively) which were both significantly increased compared to untreated explants (n = 5; p = < 0.001). d: Representative images of both pre-MF and untreated post-MF thyroid explants illustrating apoptotic cells (FITC; green) counterstained with DAPI (blue)