Fig. 8. Autophagy modulates the sensitivity of GBM primary cells to chemotherapy.

a The effects of autophagy to chemoresistance were confirmed with primary cells from GBM patients. Similar to what was observed with GBM cell lines, upon 5-day drug treatment, while autophagy inhibition by bafilomycin A1 sensitized the primary cancer cells to death, autophagy induction by rapamycin dramatically attenuated the cytotoxicity of chemotherapy and promoted cancer cell survival. b As determined by the AAV-mRFP-GFP-LC3B reporter assay, for all the groups, most of the surviving cells manifested high level of autophagic activity after 5-day treatment, suggesting that autophagy underlies the chemoresistance of GBM primary cells