Figure 1.
Effect of ruthenium complexes containing heterocyclic thioamidates in a 3D in vitro model of cancer multicellular spheroids formed from HepG2 cells. (A) Chemical structure of the ruthenium complexes containing heterocyclic thioamidates. (B) Cells were examined by light microscopy (bar = 100 μm) at the highest concentration tested after 72 h of incubation. (C) IC50 values and their respective 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) in μM. (D) Cell survival curves of the 3D vs. 2D culture models. The curves were obtained with non-linear regression from at least three independent experiments that were performed in duplicate and were measured with an Alamar blue assay after 72 h of incubation. The negative control (CTL) was treated with the vehicle (0.5% DMSO) that was used to solubilize and dilute the complexes, and doxorubicin (DOX) was used as the positive control.