Figure 2

CYT combined with ADR intensified apoptosis and inhibited the cell cycle in the G0/G1 phase of MCF-7 and MCF-7/ADR cells. (a,b) Flow cytometry indicated that the apoptosis rate of the monotherapy group was higher than that of the control group in MCF-7 and MCF-7/ADR cells, the apoptosis rate of the ADR + CYT group was significantly higher than that of the monotherapy group. (c,d) Flow cytometry indicated that G0/G1 phases in the monotherapy group and the combined group were greater than that in the control group in MCF-7 and MCF-7/ADR cells. (e) The antiapoptotic protein Bcl-2 was lower in the combined group, but proapoptotic proteins, such as BAX and Cleaved-caspase3, were significantly increased. (f) The relative expression of the apoptotic proteins (Bcl-2/GAPDH, BAX/GAPDH, and Cleaved-caspase3/GAPDH) were quantified by ImageJ and analyzed by GraphPad Prism 9. (g) Western blot analysis to determine the expression of P16, Cyclin D1. β-actin was used as a loading control. (h) The relative expression of G0–G1 phase transition-related proteins Cyclin D1/β-actin and P16/β-actin) was quantified by ImageJ and analyzed by GraphPad Prism 9. The values are obtained from three independent experiments and represented as mean ± S.D. **p < .01.