Fig. 3

The KNS42 cancer stem cell population (CD133 positive cells) is more susceptible to HTL-001-induced cell death than KNS42 parental or CD133- cells. A. Staining/flow cytometric analysis showed that 79.48% CD133 + cells had been isolated. B. Cancer stem cell marker expression was determined in the three cell populations via Taqman qPCR. CD133, MELK, BMI1, SOX2 and Notch1 were all significantly upregulated in the CD133 + cell fraction compared to CD133- and parental populations. C. CD133 + cells (IC50 11.21 µM) were more sensitive to HTL-001 treatment than CD133- cells (IC50 46.36 µM) and KNS42 parental cells (IC50 29.16 µM). Error bars represent standard deviation within one biological repeat. Cell survival was analysed by non-linear regression: [inhibitor] vs response. – variable slope (variable parameters) and significance value was calculated using Two Way Anova Analysis with significance between the IC50 values being **. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.005 and ***P < 0.0005