Fig. 5

Tamoxifen shows no effect on the number of mammospheres formed whereas ALM201 alone or in combination with tamoxifen reduces the number of mammosphere in MCF-7 cells and patient samples. a MCF-7 cells were treated with estradiol (100 nM; E2) ± tamoxifen (1 μM; Tam) ± ALM201 (1 nM) in a monolayer for 72 h before the cells were used in the mammosphere assay. Mammospheres formed were counted manually 3–5 days later (one-way ANOVA with post-hoc Dunnett’s multiple comparisons test). b Mammospheres formed from cancer cells derived from individual primary breast cancer sample treated neoadjuvantly with letrozole were counted in vitro following treatment with ALM201 (100 nM) or control for 5–7 days; n ≥ 5 replicates (t-test). c Mammospheres formed from cancer cells derived from pleural effusions from individual breast cancer patients (ER+ metastatic breast cancer samples) were counted following treatment with ALM201 (100 nM) or control for 7 days; n ≥ 5 replicates (t-test). Data points are mean ± SEM. n ≥ 3. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001