Fig. 2. Enhanced anchorage-independent growth or invasive activity of pancreatic derivative cells from direct cell-to-cell transfer.
a Representative morphologic and spatial patterns of Panc0203 cells and derivative cells. Representative images of confluent SP0926 and SP1030 cells show increased numbers of vacuoles or enlarged cytoplasm. Phase images of less confluent cells show a more dispersed growth pattern of SP0926 cells compared to that of SP1030 and maternal Panc0203 cells. b Basal levels of aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) activity of the derivative cells compared to Panc0203 cells. DEAB: N,N-diethylaminobenzaldehyde. c Significantly different tumorsphere formation activities in the SP0926 and SP1030 clones. Spheroids were counted on day 7 after seeding. Upper panel shows representative images of tumorspheres, and lower panel shows relative number of tumorspheres compared to the Panc0203 cell group (left) and diameter of tumorspheres (right). d Increased invasion activity of SP0926 cells compared to the parent Panc0203 cell line. An invasion chamber assay system containing Matrigel was performed for 24 h. The initial seeding number of cells for each group was 1 × 105. Upper chamber: serum-free medium, bottom chamber: normal culture medium. *P ≤ 0.05; **P ≤ 0.01; ***P ≤ 0.001. One-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s multiple comparison test. Data are presented as the mean values ± SD.