Figure 4.

Hypoxia stress upregulates the HIF-1α and TLR4 signaling-related protein levels in human EOC cell lines. (a) The mimic effects of CoCl₂ similar to that of 1% O₂ occurred at the 50 μM dose for A2780 and at the 100 μM dose for SKOV3, respectively. The human EOC cell lines A2780 and SKOV3 were treated with 1% O₂ or with different CoCl₂ doses (50, 100, 150, 200, and 300 μM). After 24 h, cell viability and HIF-1α protein level were analyzed by MTT (top panel) and western blotting (middle panel). The cells' morphology under hypoxia was observed by microscopy (bottom panel, magnification ×200). Data are shown as mean ± SD. ⁺P < 0.05 vs. the control group. (b) The time-dependent effects of CoCl₂ exposure on the TLR4, MyD88, HIF-1α, p-NF-κB, and NF-κB protein levels in A2780 and SKOV3 are shown. The cells were treated with 50 μM CoCl₂ (in A2780 cells) or 100 μM CoCl₂ (in SKOV3 cells) for different designated time slots (5 min, 15 min, 30 min, 2 h, 6 h, 12 h, and 24 h). After treatment, western blotting was performed to assay the protein levels. The representative results from 3 independent experiments are shown.