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. 2019 Sep 3;9:12680. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-49061-9

Figure 8.

Figure 8

HeLa cells display an increased cellular proliferation and viability when p53 DBD Nbs are expressed. An XTT assay was performed to evaluate whether or not the p53 DBD Nb-induced stabilisation of p53 levels affects the cell viability of HeLa cells. The cells were transfected with FLAG-tagged p53 DBD Nbs or a FLAG-tagged GFP Nb (control). Thereafter, the transfected cells received (or did not receive) an additional treatment with 10 µM SAHA or 1 µM staurosporine for a duration of 20 h. The graph depicts the mean net absorbance of the formazan dye measured at 475 nm (±SEM) of triplicate samples in 4 independent experiments. Statistical analysis was performed by means of a two-way ANOVA with a Bonferroni post-test. A significant higher absorbance was measured for HeLa cells expressing the p53 DBD Nbs (p < 0.001). This result implicates that expression of p53 DBD Nbs coincided with an increased proliferation and viability of HeLa cells. When the cells were co-treated with 10 µM SAHA, there was a decline in cellular proliferation. However, there was still a significant difference between HeLa cells expressing a p53 DBD Nb and the control condition (p < 0.001). The cell viability was dramatically reduced for all conditions when the cells were co-treated with 1 µM staurosporine.