Fig. 7

Elevated expression of stem-cell markers in cultured cell lines recovered from anti-mitotic drug treatments. A Viability of HeLa (blue circles) and A549 (red circles) cancer cells following treatment with cisplatin or epirubicin for 48 h. B Colony formation assay with HeLa and A549 cells. Cells were treated with various dosages of epirubicin or cisplatin for 48 h. Thereupon some cells remained as drug-treated cells in the drug-containing medium (HeLa and A549), while other cells were switched to drug-free medium (HeLa R and A549 R) and allowed to grow for 10 days before the colonies in each well were counted. Under epirubicin treatment both A549 and HeLa showed recovery in cell colonies. Under cisplatin treatment A549 retrieved cell colonies but HeLa failed to do so. C, D Expression of four different stem cell markers (ALDH1, Sox, Oct4, Nanog) in A549 (C) and HeLa (D). Red: 48 plus 48 h drug treatments; Blue: 48 h drug treatments and replaced with normal media for another 48 h to recover