Figure 1.

Smac mimetic triggers cell elongation of GBM CSLCs. (a) Cells were treated for 7 and 10 days with indicated concentrations of BV6 or DMSO. Cell viability was measured by MTT assay and is expressed as fold increase of untreated controls. (b) Cells were treated with 0.6 μM BV6 (GBM9) or 1 μM BV6 (GBM10, NSCs) for indicated times. Expression of cIAP1, cIAP2, XIAP and caspase-3 was analyzed by western blotting. T98G cells were used as a positive control for cIAP2 expression. Expression of β-actin served as loading control; *, unspecific band. (c and d) GBM9 cells were treated for 10 days with 0.6 μM BV6 or DMSO and GBM10 and NSCs for 7 days with 1 μM BV6 or DMSO. Cell morphology was analyzed by phase-contrast microscope; scale bar, 250 μm (c). Cell elongation was quantified by measuring cell length and width and by calculating cell elongation index (length/width); fold increase in cell elongation index in the presence and absence of BV6 is shown (d). In (a and d) mean+S.E.M. of three independent experiments performed in triplicate is shown; *P<0.05; ***P<0.001; n.s., not significant. Representative experiments of two (b) and three (c) independent experiments are shown