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Fig. 1 | Journal of Nanobiotechnology

Fig. 1

From: Core–shell nanoparticles suppress metastasis and modify the tumour-supportive activity of cancer-associated fibroblasts

Fig. 1

AgNP and Au@Ag nanoparticles selectively inhibit breast adenocarcinoma cells. Breast cancer cells (4T1, MCF-7) and fibroblast cells (NIH/3T3, MRC-5) were treated with AgNP and Au@Ag nanoparticles, respectively, for 24 h then IC50 values were calculated. AgNPs exerted higher cytotoxicity than Au@Ag nanoparticles, moreover, fibroblast cells were less sensitive to nanoparticle treatments than cancer cells (a). Fluorescently labelled 4T1 tumour cells were co-cultured with unlabelled NIH/3T3 fibroblasts then treated with nanoparticles in non-toxic concentrations. Microscopic images (c) and flow cytometric evaluation of the co-cultures (b, c) revealed that AgNP and Au@Ag nanoparticle treatments reduced the ratio of cancerous cells in the tested co-cultures, while AuNP treatments did not influence the cellular composition of the samples (b, c). AgNP and Au@Ag nanoparticle treatments suppressed the wound healing activity of 4T1 and MCF-7 adenocarcinoma cells (d, e) demonstrated by cell free zones 24 h after scratching (d) and by quantitative evaluation of the wound healing activities (e). AgNP and Au@Ag nanoparticle treatments suppressed also the invasion of 4T1 adenocarcinoma cells (f). *P ≤ 0.05; **P ≤ 0.01; ***P ≤ 0.001; ****P ≤ 0.0001 indicate statistical significance (unpaired t-test)

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