Fig 1.

Dexamethasone suppresses inflammatory pathways and inhibits KSHV-induced cell proliferation and cellular transformation. (A) Volcano plot of DEGs between KSHV-transformed KMM cells and matched primary MM cells. Cutoffs: fold change > 2.5, FDR < 0.05, P < 0.05. (B) Heatmap of DEGs between MM and KMM cells. (C) Bubble chart of enriched GOBP pathways. (D) Cell proliferation curves of MM and KMM cells treated with 0, 0.01, 0.1, 1, or 10 µM dexamethasone dissolved in 0.1% ethanol. (E) Representative pictures of soft agar assay of KMM cells treated with 0, 0.1, or 1 µM dexamethasone for 15 days. Scale bar: 1 mm. (F and G) Analysis of cell cycle (F) and apoptosis (G) of MM and KMM cells treated with 0, 0.1, or 1 µM dexamethasone for 2 days. (H) Immunoblots of p27, cyclin D1, pAKT-T308, AKT, pS6K-T389, and S6K in MM and KMM cells treated with 0 or 0.1 µM dexamethasone for 2 days. (I) Immunoblots of GR, pGR-S211, and GILZ in MM and KMM cells treated with 0 or 0.1 µM dexamethasone. (J) Immunoblot of GR following siRNA knockdown in MM and KMM cells. (K) Cell proliferation curves of MM and KMM cells following GR knockdown treated with 0 or 0.1 µM dexamethasone. Experiments were independently repeated three times, and results are presented as mean ± SD from the three experiments (D, F, G, and K).