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. 2020 Oct 17;11(10):875. doi: 10.1038/s41419-020-03092-7

Fig. 3. Selective BCL-XL inhibition significantly augments 5FU and irinotecan in inducing CRC cell death in vitro.

Fig. 3

a Correlation between basal BCL-XL expression (densitometric analyses from Fig. 2b) and cell death increase under treatment with 1 µg/ml 5-fluorouracil (5FU; left graph) or 1 µM irinotecan (right graph) for 48 h. b Western blot analysis of whole-cell lysates from HT29 and SW480 cells, detecting expression levels of antiapoptotic proteins BCL-XL, MCL-1, and BCL-2 after treatment with the indicated WEHI-539 concentrations for 48 h. c Relative quantification of cell death by FACS analysis after treatment of HT29 and SW480 cells with adjusted concentrations of WEHI-539 and/or chemotherapeutic agents irinotecan (upper panel) and 5FU (lower panel) for 48 h. The following doses have been applied. HT29: 2 µM WEHI-539, 5 µM irinotecan, 0.5 µg/ml 5FU; SW480: 0.5 µM WEHI-539, 20 µM irinotecan, 50 µg/ml 5FU. d Relative quantification of cell death by FACS analysis after transfection of HT29 and SW480 cells with 80 nM siRNA targeting BCL-XL and/or chemotherapeutic agents irinotecan (upper panel) and 5FU (lower panel) for 48 h. A nontargeting scrambled siRNA served as control and 5FU; irinotecan concentrations were the same as in c. Results in c and d are shown as mean with standard deviation; n = 3; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.