Figure 1.

Pyrimidine-based compounds reduce the proliferation capacity of cancer cells

(A) Diagram showing experiment setup for the treatment of cancer cells with P12 and P14 for 7 days. (B) Colony formation capacity of breast cancer cells (MCF7) under the treatment of different concentration of P12 (0, 5, 20, 35, 50 μM) and P14 (0, 5, 20, 35, 50 μM) for 7 days. Representative images are shown. Quantifications are shown below. (C) Representative images of a dose-response experiment using colony formation of melanoma cells (A375) after 7 days treatment with P12 (0, 5, 20, 35, 50 μM) and P14 (0, 5, 20, 35, 50 μM). Quantifications are shown below. (D) IC₅₀ calculations for P12 and P14 in MCF7 (right) and A375 (left). The table below shows the IC₅₀ of each compound. (E) Crystal violet staining to determine the effect of P12 and P14 in a non-tumoral cell line (TC28a2). The cells were treated for 7 days using the following concentrations—0, 5, 20, 35, 50 μM—for both compounds. Drugs were refreshed every 48 h. (F) Spheroids of MCF7 and A375 cells treated with 5 μM of P12 and P14 to demonstrate cell proliferation arrest in a 3D culture. Spheroids were cultured for 12 days. The graph represents the mean of six spheroids/day. Data represent the mean ± SEM of three independent experiments. Two-tailed Student’s t test and ANOVA were used to calculate the significance represented as follows: ∗p < 0.05; ∗∗p < 0.01; ∗∗∗p < 0.001.