Figure 3:

PTC-028 induces caspase dependent apoptosis in endometrial cancer cells. (A) Ishikawa and CS99 cells were treated with 50 nM PTC-028 for 48h, cells were subjected to the TUNEL assay and analyzed by fluorescence microscopy. The number of TUNEL positive nuclei were counted from ~400 cells per treatment group. Data represent the mean ± S.D. of three independent experiments performed in triplicate. *P<0.05 when comparing with respective control by Student’s t-test. (B) CS99 and Ishikawa cells were treated with 50 nM PTC-028 for 48h. Expression of BMI1, PARP, cleaved caspase 3, cleaved caspase 9, and beta actin was determined by immunoblotting. (C) Ishikawa and CS99 cells were pre-treated with or without the pan caspase inhibitor z-VAD-fmk (z-VAD) at 10µM for 3h followed by PTC-028 at 50 nm for 48h. Cell viability was assessed by the MTS assay. Vehicle treated control cells were set to 100%. Data are mean ± S.D. of three independent experiments performed in triplicate. *P<0.05 when comparing with respective control by a one-way ANOVA.