Figure 4

Effects of the different treatments on caspase activation in H9c2 cells. H9c2 cells were treated with 5-FU alone or combined with LF or DOXO alone for 48 h at the concentrations inhibiting the 50% of the proliferation of the cardiocytes as previously indicated in Table 1. Thereafter, the expression of caspase 3, 7 and 9 were evaluated after blotting with specific antibodies that recognise both the full and the cleaved forms of the proteins, as described in "Materials and Methods". Expression of the house-keeping protein α-tubulin, used as loading control, was also evaluated. The experiments were performed at least three different times and the results were always similar. CTR, untreated cells; 5-FU, cells treated with 5-FU alone; 5-FU + LF, cells treated with 5-FU in combination with LF; DOXO, cells treated with DOXO alone.