Figure 5.

DHCT reversed nicotine effects on tumor sphere and colony-forming abilities of Huh7 and HepG2 HCC cells. (a, b) Representative image of DHCT treatment on the self-renewal, i.e., tumor-sphere and colony-forming properties of HCC cells. Scale bar 100 μm. (c) Detection of the expression of self-renewal (CD133 and SOX2) markers. GAPDH served as the loading control. (d) Representative bar graph of fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) showing reduction of ALDH⁺ cancer stem-like cell population of DHCT-treated HCC cell line compared to nontreated control; ^∗p < 0.05; ^∗∗p < 0.051 versus controls (Student's t-test).