Figure 4

Functional characteristics comparison in MCSCs and MB49 cells. (A) Comparison of proliferative abilities. The cell proliferation growth curve using CCK-8 shows that MCSCs contain the higher absorbance value at day 4,5,6. (B) (left) The light images of soft agar assay shows that MCSCs form more numerous and bigger colonies than MB49 cells. (right) The comparison of colony number shows that MCSCs cause a significant increase in colony numbers on soft agar than MB49 cells do. (C) Comparison of migration abilities in vitro. (left) The light images of penetrating cells by transwell migration assays. (right) The numbers of invaded MCSCs are more than MB49 cells. (D) Comparison of resistance to chemotherapy using CCK-8. Compared to MB49 cells, MCSCs show higher cell viabilities after treatment with various concentrations of anti-cancer drugs including paclitaxel, doxorubicin, cisplatin and mitomycin. The viability is presented as% of viable cells after drug treatment relative to number of untreated control cells. Data is the mean ± SD of three independent experiments. (E) Comparison of tumorigenic abilities in vivo. (left) The light images of subcutaneously tumorigenicity by xenograft formation in deficient nude mice. (middle) MCSCs cause remarkable tumor volume than MB49 cells do following an injection of the same number. (right) Microphotographs of H&E stained tumor tissue sections from MCSCs and MB49 cells. (*P < 0.05).