Fig. 3.

Protective role of autophagy against cisplatin-induced toxicity in human lung cancer cells. a Significant alteration of the relative cell viability was observed in H460 cells when pretreated with either 0.5 µM wortmannin (autophagy inhibitor) or 100 nM rapamycin (autophagy inducer) for 30 min followed by 50 µM cisplatin for another 24 h, compared with the cells only treated with cisplatin. b The percentage of apoptotic cells demonstrated that the inhibition of autophagy remarkably enhanced cisplatin-induced apoptosis, but (c) was inhibited, as evidenced with reduction of bright blue fluorescence of Hoechst33342, by pre-culture with rapamycin. Data are shown as the mean ± SD (n = 3). *p < 0.05 versus untreated control cells. ^#p < 0.05 versus only cisplatin-treated cells