Figure 4.

Assessment of survival of HeLa and Caco-2 cells.

Notes: Cells were incubated with 10 µM SN-38, both in liposomal form and in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) solution, for 24 (left panels) and 48 h (right panels). The surviving fraction was evaluated 0, 24, and 48 h after drug removal by the MTT assay. Cell survival in the presence of the amount of blank liposomes and DMSO, which would contain the amount of drug to provide 10 µM SN-38 in the incubation medium, was always between 96% and 98%. Data correspond to mean values ± SD of at least six different experiments. P-values <0.03 (*), 0.008 (**), and 0.0001 (***) were statistically significant.

Abbreviations: SN-38sol, irinotecan metabolite solution in DMSO; SN-38lip, irinotecan metabolite in liposomal form.