Fig 1. Effect of candidate adjuvants and tumor cell lysate on cell viability and T-cell proliferation.

(A) Effect of candidate adjuvants (i.e., Cp, Am and [Am+Cp]), and (B) tumor cell lysate on viability of dendritic cells. DCs (2 × 10⁵) were treated with Cp, Am or [Am+Cp] at a dose between 1 to 1000 μg/ml or treated with TCL at concentrations between 50 and 500 μg/ml for 24 h. Cell viability was performed by MTT assay. Data represent the mean ± SD of three replicates. Optimal dosage/concentration of TCL, Cp, Am and [Am+Cp] phytoextracts for stimulating DC-mediated activation of splenocyte or T-cell proliferation. (C) DCs as stimulator cells were pulsed with TCLs at 50–500 μg/ml in medium supplemented with LPS at 1 μg/ml. (D) and (E), TCL-loaded DCs as stimulator cells were treated with Cp, Am or [Am+Cp] phytoextracts at 100 or 200 μg/ml, or with 1 μg/ml LPS (positive control). The (C), (D) and (E) sets of DC stimulator cells were then co-cultured with splenocytes (C), CD8⁺ T cells (D) or CD4⁺ T cells (E), as responder cells, for 4 days. Cell proliferation activities of (C) splenocytes, (D) CD8⁺ cell and (E) CD4⁺ cells are represented as the fold change over control (i.e., splenocytes or T cells only). Data represent the mean ± SE obtained from three independent experiments. A P value of less than 0.05 was considered significant (*, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01; ***, P < 0.001; n.s, no significance).