Figure 4. mTOR inhibition reduces sphere growth in the recently established pancreatic cancer cell line PCK-2.

(a) Rapamycin reduced the viability of PCK-2 cells in the two-dimensional culture. Cell viability was determined, as indicated in Figure 1(a). Representative photographs of the spheres cultured in the stem cell medium in the absence (b) or presence (c) of 10 nM rapamycin. Scale bar: 50 μm. (d) Rapamycin does not affect the number of spheres. The cells were cultured, as shown in Figure 2(e). The indicated results are the mean values and s.d. of the number of spheres formed per 288-wells (three 96-well plates) in triplicate experiments. (e) The cells were cultured as in (d), and the sizes of the spheres were determined. All data are the mean ± s.d. *P < 0.05.