Fig. 5

Effect of PKM2 in the maintenance of the Warburg effect in HNC cells.(a-b) Percentage of decreased lactate production and glucose uptake in curcumin-PEC treated versus PEC control H157 cells after 48 h of treatment. Decreased lactate production and glucose uptake were rescued after PKM2 over-expression (PKM2-OE) in curcumin-PEC treated cells. (c) Measurement of apoptotic death by caspase 3/7 activity in curcumin-PEC treated versus control-PEC H157 cells after 48 h. The apoptotic death was partially rescued after PKM2 over-expression (PKM2-OE) in curcumin-PEC treated cells. (d) Reduced cell proliferation in curcumin-PEC treated H157 cell rescued partially by PKM2 overexpression (PKM2-OE) in curcumin-PEC treated H157 cells. (e) Representative image of invasion assay in curcumin-PEC treated versus control-PEC H157 cells after 24 h. Over-expression of PKM2 (PKM2-OE) partially rescues the invasion property of curcumin-PEC treated cells and the quantitative evaluation of invasive property of H157 cells. Three independent experiments were conducted with mean values ± SD. P-value calculated using two-tailed Student’s t-test, * P < 0.05, ** P < 0.01,*** P < 0.001, ns = non-significant