Fig. 1: Autophagy rates correlate with the levels of cytosolic dsDNA in TNBC cell lines.

A Quantifications of dsDNA intensity of cytosolic dsDNA and representative images of MDA-MB-468, MDA-MB-436 and MDA-MB-231 control cells and cells exposed to 8 Gy (X-ray) irradiation, harvested after 24 hours, and stained with anti-dsDNA antibody (red) and nucleus-stained with DAPI (blue). Scale bar: 10 μm. B Quantifications of cytosolic dsDNA-TFAM colocalization and representative images of MDA-MB-468, MDA-MB-436 and MDA-MB-231 control cells and cells exposed to 8 Gy (X-ray) irradiation, harvested after 24 hours, and stained with anti-dsDNA antibody (red), TFAM (green) and nucleus-stained with DAPI (blue). Scale bar: 10 μm. C Quantifications of dsDNA intensity of cytosolic dsDNA in MDA-MB-468, MDA-MB-436 and MDA-MB-231. D Western blots of MDA-MB-468, MDA-MB-436 and MDA-MB-231 exposed to 8 Gy and 3×8 Gy irradiation (X-rays). Cells were harvested 24 h after the last irradiation. GAPDH served as a loading control. E Representative images of MDA-MB-468 control cells and cells exposed to 8 Gy (X-ray) irradiation and harvested after 24 h (left) or cells treated with Torin1/EBSS for 8 h before harvesting (right). Scale bar: 10 μm. F Quantifications of dsDNA intensity of MDA-MB-468 cells under (E). G Representative images of MDA-MB-436 and MDA-MB-231 control cells and cells exposed to 8 Gy (X-ray) irradiation and harvested after 48 h or cells treated with the autophagy inhibitor SAR405 (3 μM for 48 h). Scale bar: 10 μm. H Quantifications of dsDNA intensity of MDA-MB-436 and MDA-MB-231 cells under (G). The bars and error bars represent mean values ± standard deviation. Three biologically independent experiments were performed. P values were calculated with two-way ANOVA (* ≤ 0.05; **≤ 0.01; ***≤ 0.005, ****≤0.0001).