Figure 4
Effects of cetuximab treatment on tumour microtissue at day 5 of co-culture. (a) Gene expression of tumour protein p53 and apoptosis regulator BAX in untreated control group (white bars, n = 3) and in antibody exposure group (black bars, n = 2–3). *p < 0.05 using unpaired two-tailed Student’s t test. Data shown as mean + SD. (b) Immunofluorescent TUNEL (green) and Ki67 (red) staining of untreated control group indicating especially proliferative cells throughout the tumour microtissue. (c) Immunofluorescent TUNEL (green) and Ki67 (red) staining of antibody exposed group demonstrating the occurrence of proliferative and apoptotic cells. (d) Immunofluorescent staining of E-cadherin (red). (e) Immunofluorescent staining of vimentin (red). E-cadherin and vimentin staining are shown exemplarily only for exposed tumour microtissues. Nuclei stained with DAPI (blue). Scale bar: 50 µm. (f) H&E staining of untreated control group indicating two types of tumour cell nuclei. (g) H&E staining of antibody-exposed group showing similar nuclei differences. Dashed line (grey) indicates chip culture surface during co-culture. Scale bar: 100 µm.
