Figure 5.

Selective killing of HCC cells in separate culture by the synthetic switch-based BV. (A) Schematic illustration of recombinant BV CirCB. CirCB was similar to CirCE except that the transgene was proapoptic hBax. (B) Cell morphology. (C) Viable cell density. (D) Viability. (E) Apoptosis induction. The HCC (PLC) and normal (HUVEC) cells were separately seeded to 6-well plates (3 × 10⁵ cells/well) and were mock-transduced or transduced with CirCB. At 1 dpt, the cell morphology was observed under the microscope. All cells were then harvested and stained by trypan blue, followed by viable cell density and viability analyses. The cells were also subjected to luminescence-based Caspase 3,7 assay to quantify apoptosis. Higher relative luminescence units (RLU) indicate higher degrees of apoptosis. The data represent means±SD of triplicated culture experiments.