Potential Therapeutic Benefit of Combining Gefitinib and Tamoxifen for Treating Advanced Lung Adenocarcinoma

Figure 2

Combination treatment of Gefitinib (Gef) and TAM alters ERβ cellular localization without changing expression level of ERs. (a) Immunoblot analysis of two LAC cell lines (PC9 and A549) upon Gef and/or TAM treatment. The expression levels of ERs were not altered upon treatments in either cell line. GAPDH served as the loading control in all blots. (b) Gef plus TAM resulted in the relocation of ERβ from nucleus to cytosol in EGFR wild type A549 cells. The upper left image shows the basal distribution (vehicle treatment; Veh) of ERβ in nucleus. TAM alone (upper-right image) but not Gef (lower-left image) resulted in a partial reduction in nuclear ERβ expression. However, combination of Gef and TAM resulted in almost complete retention of ERβ in cytosol in A549 cells (lower-right images). Representative images of immunoblot assay and immunofluorescence were from at least three reproducible experiments.

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