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. 2010 Nov 17;5(11):e14026. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0014026

Figure 1. Reporter constructs to normalize for transfection efficiency during structure formation in hydrogels.

Figure 1

(A) MCF-7/WS8 cells growing within Matrigel hydrogels without DNA complexes began as individual cells at day 1 (top left panel) and formed multi-cellular spheroids by day 3 (top right panel), a process that was not inhibited by 0.5 µg DNA lipoplexes (bottom panel). Scale bar, 200 µm. (B–D) Cells were transfected with reporter genes for EGFP and GLuc in parallel (0.5 or 0.05 µg DNA total with an pEGFP:pGLuc mass ratio of 9∶1) within hydrogels. Percentage of EGFP positive cells (B) and activity of GLuc (C) increased with DNA amount at both 24 and 48 h. Values are means ± s.d. from two independent experiments carried out in triplicate. GLuc activity correlated with %EGFP-positive cells (D).