Fig. 1

Coculture with adipocytes promotes multidrug resistance in various human and murine breast cancer cell lines. a Experimental design: breast tumor cells were cocultivated (pink cells) (or not) (blue cells) with adipocytes for 3 days (pre-incubation period) and incubated alone with drugs for 4 h. After washing, cells were cultivated again (or not) with adipocytes for 3 days (post-incubation period). At the end of the post-incubation period, the number of viable cells was determined. b Results of viability assays with various breast tumor cells cocultivated (white bar) (or not) (black bar) with adipocytes and treated (or not) with doxorubicin (DOX) at indicated doses. Bar plots represent the percentage of surviving cells relative to the survival of untreated cells (set to 100%). c Similar viability assays were performed with the MDA-MB436 cell line cocultivated (or not) with adipocytes, treated (or not) with paclitaxel, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), or mafosfamide at the indicated doses. Abbreviations: C cocultivated cells, NC non-cocultivated cells.