Figure 1.
HP inhibits cell viability and causes cell morphology changes in HepG2 and Huh7 cells. (A) Cells were treated with HP for 24, 48 and 72 h. The cell viability of both HepG2 and Huh7 cells decreased in a dose- and time-dependent manner. The data are presented as the mean ± SEM from three independent experiments. (B) Contrast in cell morphology. Changes in HepG2 and Huh7 cells were observed following the addition of HP (100 µg/ml) at 0, 24 and 48 h after the treatment (magnification, ×100). (C and D) HP induces cell cycle arrest in HepG2 and Huh7 cells upon treatment with 50 and 100 µg/ml for 24 h. (C) The distribution of the cell cycle of HepG2 and Huh7 cells was detected by flow cytometry after staining with propidium iodide. (D) Quantification of the results of panel C. The data are presented as the mean ± SEM from three independent experiments. *P=0.023 for HepG2 and P=0.028 for Huh7. (E) Detection of cyclin D1, cyclin E and cyclin-dependent kinase 2, which are biomarkers of G1 phase. The protein levels of glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase were used as a loading control. All immunoblotting experiments were performed twice. CDK2, cyclin-dependent kinase 2; GAPDH, glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase; HP, Huaier polysaccharide; SEM, standard error of the mean.