Figure 3.

In vitro experiments for therapeutic evaluation. a) Immunofluorescence assay of TUNEL analyzing cell apoptosis induced by dulbecco's modified eagle medium (DMEM, control), ¹²⁵I, and ¹²⁵I‐TiO₂. b) Quantitative comparison of cell apoptosis rate among groups (n = 3, mean ± s.d., one‐way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with least significant difference (LSD)‐t post hoc test, P < 0.0001 (¹²⁵I‐TiO₂ vs Control) and < 0.0001 (¹²⁵I‐TiO₂ vs ¹²⁵I), ***P < 0.001). c) Immunofluorescence assay analyzing the cellular PCNA expression in different treatment groups including control, ¹²⁵I, and ¹²⁵I‐TiO₂ group. d) Quantitative comparison of the expression level of PCNA among groups (n = 3, mean ± s.d., one‐way ANOVA with LSD‐t post hoc test, P = 0.0020 (¹²⁵I‐TiO₂ vs Control) and 0.0273 (¹²⁵I‐TiO₂ vs ¹²⁵I), *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01). e) Colony formation assay analyzing cell proliferation after receiving incremental radiation doses of ¹²⁵I and ¹²⁵I‐TiO₂. f) Curves of cell surviving fraction based on colony formation assay (n = 3, mean ± s.d., Mann–Whitney U‐test, P = 0.0463 (¹²⁵I‐TiO₂ vs ¹²⁵I), *P < 0.05).