Figure 5
An activated EMT pathway is required for chemoresistance to MTA in primary NSCLC and kaemperol abrogates MTA resistance. (a) Micrographic images of primary BE088T cells (BE088T), BE088T cells treated for 14 days with 5 ng/ml TGF-ββ (BE088T+TGF-β) or with 5 μM MTA (BE088T_R). Scale bar, 100 μm. (b and c) Treatment with TGF-β and MTA activates the EMT pathway and induces stem cell characteristics. BE088T, TGF-β- and MTA-treated BE088T cells, as described in (a), were analyzed by qPCR for EMT-TFs and Vimentin (b) and stem cell genes (c). Data are shown as mean±S.D. of three independent experiments (n=3). (d) An activated EMT pathway promotes chemoresistance to MTA. BE088T, TGF-β- and MTA-treated BE088T cells (as above) were exposed to MTA for 5 days and analyzed by XTT assay. Data are shown as mean±S.D. of three independent experiments (n=3). (e) Kaempferol and SB431542 abrogate MTA resistance in primary NSCLC cells. BE088T_R cells were treated with vehicle, kaempferol (40 μM) or SB431542 (40 μM) for 5 days. The resulting cells (BE088T_R, BE088T_R+kaempferol and BE088T_R+SB431542, respectively) were subsequently exposed to MTA for an additional 4 days. The results are shown as mean±S.D. of triplicate experiments. *P<0.05; **P<0.01; ***P<0.001
