Figure 7.

Effect of extracellular matrix (matrigel) and increased serum supplementation during spheroid formation on the chemotherapeutic response. (a) Distribution of the mortality fraction in image layers 8-15 of confocal z-sections and its dependence on matrigel and increased serum supplementation. (b) Representative merged CTG-PI confocal sections (image layer 13) of spheroids showing the variation of mortality with different culture conditions. In this panel, control corresponds to cells not exposed to carboplatin. (c) Response to carboplatin treatment was variable depending on the culture conditions, as accessed by the average morality fraction over image layers 8-15 of samples. Note that the simultaneous addition of matrigel and increased serum (20%) supplementation showed a statistically significant increase in chemoresistance, while neither had a significant effect alone. In addition, in the absence of drug, addition of matrigel and 20% serum appears tosignificantly diminish basal cell death within the spheroids (statistically significant in image layers 12 and 15). Each datapoint is averaged over three independent experiments (with total number of samples, n = 16) and shown as mean ±standard deviation.