Figure 4.

Knockdown of α7nAChR in THP-1 derived macrophages (TMs) promotes colorectal cancer (CRC) cell invasion in vitro. (A) LoVo or (B) SW620 cells were co-cultured with either (a) TM or (b) TMα7^−/− in 24-well Transwell plates with 8-µm polycarbonate membrane filters coated with 100 µl of Matrigel. After 36 h (for LoVo) or 24 h (for SW620) co-culture, the cells that invaded to the lower surface through the Matrigel were fixed, stained and quantitated by cell counting under a light microscope in four predetermined fields at a magnification of ×400.Representative images are shown. The number of invaded CRC cells are presented as the mean ± SD of six images of three separate experiments (n=3, c). Significance of differences between groups was determined by Student's t-test. A p-value <0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. The asterisk symbol indicates statistically significant differences between TM and TMα7^−/− cells (p=0.0002 for both cells).