Figure 3
Quercetin dose-dependently decreased Hsp27 expression and ALDH+ population of breast cancer cells. (A) AS-B145 or AS-B244 cells were treated with quercetin at indicated concentration for 48 h and detected the expression of Hsp27 by Western blot. Inserted values indicated relative expression of Hsp27 in comparison with DMSO. N, no treatment; D, DMSO. (B, C) ALDH+ population after treatment of quercetin was determined by ALDEFLUOR assay. The quantitative results were shown in bar graph (C). #, P < 0.01; *, P < 0.05. (D, E) AS-B145 cells were transfected with pDsRed-Express2-C1 (pDsRed) or pDsRed-Hsp27 and treated with 0.1% DMSO or 50 μM quercetin for 48 h. The transfection efficiency of each group was approximately 40% (upper panel) and red fluorescence positive cells were gated to further analyze Aldefluor green fluorescence signal (lower panel) by WinMDI software. The quantitative results were shown in bar graph (E). P < 0.01; *, P < 0.05. ALDH: aldehyde dehydrogenase.