Fig. 7: Detection of biochemical features of engulfed cells detected after OXA, CDDP-PCT or IR treatment.

a, b Representative fluorescent images of cytochrome c release, cleavage of CASP3, and nuclear degradation in engulfed HCT116^WT cells detected after 24-h co-culture of untreated HCT116^WT cells with untreated (red) CMTMR-labeled HCT116^WT cells (aI–aIII, bI–bIII) and after 24-h co-culture of untreated HCT116^WT cells with (red) CMTMR-labeled HCT116^WT cells that have been irradiated with 4 Gy of γ-ionizing radiation in the presence or absence of 100 μM Z-VAD-fmk (ZVAD) or 100 μM Y-VAD-cmk (YVAD) (aIV–aVI, bIV–bVI) are shown. Frequencies of cells showing cytochrome c release (c), cleaved CASP3 (d), and nuclear degradation (e) are shown (means ± SEM, n = 3). For c–e, asterisk (*) is used for “HCT116^WT+OXA-treated HCT116^WT”, “HCT116^WT+CDDP-treated HCT116^WT”, “HCT116^WT+PCT-treated HCT116^WT”, and “HCT116^WT+Irradiated (IR) HCT116^WT” with “HCT116^WT+control (Co.) HCT116^WT” for nuclear degradation and hash (#) is used for the comparison of inhibitor-treated cells with respective control cells for cytochrome c release, cleaved caspase-3, or nuclear degradation. *^{, #}p < 0.05; **^{, ##}p < 0.01; ***^{, ###}p < 0.001; and ^####p < 0.0001