Figure 3.

Impact of human primary macrophages on the viability of different human cancer cell lines. Human primary macrophages remained as controls or were incubated with MCF-7 cells (A), Bcl-2–overexpressing MCF-7 cells (B), or RKO cells (C) for the times indicated. Cocultures and control macrophages were incubated for 30 min with accutase, harvested, stained with α-CD44-PE as a discrimination marker between macrophages and tumor cells, followed by annexin V-FITC staining as a marker for cell death, and analyzed by FACS. Data are presented as the mean ± SEM from three independent experiments. Differences between annexin V binding of macrophages and MCF-7 cells from coculture (cc) marked with an asterisk are statistically significant (p < 0.05). (D) Western analysis shows Bcl-2 expression of control MCF-7 cells and MCF-7 cells transfected with a plasmid encoding human Bcl-2 (MCF-7-Bcl-2). One of two representative experiments is displayed.