Figure 1.

Effect of AEs on PTX or ADR-treated breast cancer cells. Cell viability assay: breast cancer cell lines (MDA-MB231 (a, b) and MCF7(c, d)) were treated with PTX (20 nM) or ADR (2.5 μM) with or without AEs (from 12.5 to 50 μM) for 24 h. Histograms show cell viability to highlight the effect of the association of chemotherapeutic agent and AEs. Synergy is characterized by a combination index < 0.8, and when present, its value is reported in red. Data is expressed as the mean ± SD of, at least, three independent experiments compared with a medium alone. The statistical significance between groups was calculated using Student's t-test. Significant differences are indicated by asterisks. MDA-MB231+PTX: PTX vs. 12.5 μM AEs+PTX ^∗p = 0.0127; PTX vs. 25 μM AEs+PTX ^∗∗p = 0.0037; PTX vs. 50 μM AEs+PTX ^∗∗∗p < 0.0001. MDA-MB231+ADR: ADR vs. 12.5 μM AEs+ADR ^∗∗p = 0.0070; ADR vs. 25 μM AEs+ADR ^∗∗p = 0.0049; ADR vs. 50 μM AEs+ADR ^∗∗p = 0.0019. MCF7+PTX: PTX vs. 12.5 μM AEs+PTX ^∗∗p = 0.0019; PTX vs. 25 μM AEs+PTX ^∗∗∗p < 0.0001; PTX vs. 50 μM AEs+PTX ^∗∗p = 0.0017. MCF7+ADR: ADR vs. 12.5 μM AEs+ADR ^∗∗∗p < 0.0001; ADR vs. 25 μM AEs+ADR ^∗∗∗p = 0.0001; ADR vs. 50 μM AEs+ADR ^∗∗∗p < 0.0001.