Figure 4.

Morphological and molecular characterization of apoptotic cells in tumor tissue. Hematoxylin and eosin staining was performed on 10 μm sections of a paraffin-embedded tumor tissue, and microscopic examination was conducted using a Leica DMi8 (Leica microsystems, Wetzlar, Germany). (A–H) 100× images, Scale bar: 25 μm. Red arrows indicate mitotic and proliferating cells and white arrows indicate pyknotic, dense, or fragmented nuclei. TUNEL staining of tumor sections was performed, and confocal imaging was done (I, K) using an LSM780NLO Carl Zeiss GmbH (Carl Zeiss AG, Jena, Germany), 63× images, Scale bar: 50 μm. Quantification of TUNEL-positive cells in tumor sections using ImageJ software (J, L) is shown. Data are presented as mean ± SD, *p ≤ 0.05; **p ≤ 0.01; and ***p ≤ 0.001 in comparison to mock.