Research Article
Brucine Suppresses Vasculogenic Mimicry in Human Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Cell Line MDA-MB-231
Figure 4
Brucine suppresses vasculogenic mimicry tube formation on matrigel with downregulation of VM-related protein expressions. The dose-dependent inhibitory effect of brucine on vasculogenic mimicry tube formation was observed under microscopy (a) and evaluated by the number of tubules (b) plus intersections (c) and the mean length of tubules (d) using ImageJ software. Western blot results and the corresponding densitometry analysis showed that brucine could reduce the protein expression levels of EphA2 (e), MMP-9 (f), and MMP-2 (g) with dose-dependent effect. The scale bar is of 200 μm (mean ± s.e.m., n = 3, P < 0.05, P < 0.01, and P < 0.001.)
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