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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Mar 18.
Published in final edited form as: Am J Surg. 2013 Feb 19;205(4):387–396. doi: 10.1016/j.amjsurg.2013.01.008

Figure 4.

Figure 4

Effects of triptolide therapy in neuroblastoma. Our study shows that triptolide treatment in neuroblastoma cells leads to inhibition of NF-κB activity while also inhibiting mRNA and protein expression in the heat shock pathway, specifically by reducing HSF1, and thereby reducing HSP70 and HSP27. NF-κB is known to serve as a transcription initiator for HSP70 (UCSC Genome Bioinformatics Site), providing a possible common link among the pathways (dotted line). Ultimately, the inhibition of these pathways has been previously demonstrated to result in increased intracellular calcium levels, leading to cell death. In our study, we demonstrate triptolide’s induction of different cell death mechanisms, based on the cell type, ultimately leading to reduced cell viability or death.