Figure 7.
Validation of cell cycle-associated genes linked to forkhead box M1 (FOXM1). MCF-7 cells were treated with solvent (white) as a negative control, 10−9 M E2 (blue) as a positive control, 10−8 M zearalenone (red) or 10−5 M apigenin (green) for 24 h. The expression of FOXM1 (A), cell division cycle 25A (CDC25A) (B), cell division cycle 25B (CDC25B) (C), cyclin B1 (CCNB1) (D), centromere protein A (CENPA) (E), polo like kinase 1 (PLK1) (F) and cyclin dependent kinase inhibitor 1A (CDKN1A/p21) (G) was assessed by real-time PCR. The expression level of each gene was normalized to the expression levels of the housekeeping genes glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) and TATA box binding protein (TBP). The results are expressed as the percentage of relative expression of transcripts obtained in E2-treated cells and are the means ± SEM of six independent experiments. * indicates a p-value < 0.05, ** indicates a p-value < 0.01 and *** indicates a p-value < 0.001 by one-way ANOVA followed by Dunnett’s post hoc test for comparison of the control treatment with the other treatments.