Figure 2

Cancer patient serum and cancer cell line conditioned medium increased anchorage-independent growth of HEK293 cells. HEK293 cells were cultured for 3 weeks in control human serum, or cancer patient sera (A-C), and in control medium or Colo320 cell line conditioned medium (CM-Colo) (D-F). Cells were then grown in soft agar for 2 weeks. (A and D; Bright field pictures), note the increase of colonies size in the cells exposed to patient sera and Colo320 cell line conditioned medium compared to their respective controls. (B and E) the graphs represent the number of colonies counted per field. (C and F; Colony size distribution) the sizes of the colonies were measured using ImageJ software and the frequency of different colony size was calculated. Note that the biggest colonies are formed in the cells exposed to patient sera and Colo320 cell line conditioned medium. Data are mean × SD of 2 control sera vs. 4 cancer patient sera (A-C), and 2 control vs. 3 independent batches of conditioned media (D-F). (See Additional file 4: Figure S3 for supplement information)