Fig. 4.
Effects of protein kinase inhibitors on the expression of ALDH, CD44 and CD24. a ALDH-positive cells, quantified by the ALDEFLUOR assay, are significantly decreased with treatment of CAMKII, JAK-3, and IKK inhibitors (10 µM) in MCF-7 cells. The upper panel shows ALDH-positive cells which are treated with ALDH inhibitor, DEAB, as a negative control, and the lower panel represents ALDH-positive cells without DEAB. The ALDH-positive population is gated as demonstrated in box. b The proportion of CD44high/CD24low cell population is further analyzed by flow cytometry in MCF-7 cells with a treatment of CAMKII, JAK-3, and IKK inhibitors or DMSO for 2 days. c, d The effect of CaMKII, JAK3, IKK inhibitors on the expression of CD44/CD24 in MCF-7-derived mammosphere (MCF-7 M) is also demonstrated in western blotting. β-actin is used as a loading control. Representative western blot analysis with a quantitation bar is shown. The data shown represent the mean ± SD of 3 independent experiments. *p < 0.05 vs. MCF-7, #p < 0.05 vs. MCF-7 M