Figure 1.

DEX inhibits apoptosis and promotes proliferation in response to gemcitabine in vitro. The established pancreatic cancer cells MIA-Pa-Ca2, T3M4, DAN-G, Capan-1, Capan-2, PANC-1, Colo-357, AsPC1, SU8686 and BxPc-3 were left either untreated (CO) or were treated with gemcitabine (GEM: 25, 50, 200 μM) in the absence (white bars) or presence (black bars) of DEX (1 μM) which was added 48 h prior to cytotoxic treatment. 72 h following addition of gemcitabine, (A) apoptosis was analyzed by staining of the cells with annexin-FITC and FACS-analysis. (B) Likewise, viability was detected by the MTT-assay. Experiments were performed three times with identical outcome and standard deviations are shown.