Fig. 4

Effects of each treatment on the invasive ability of OS cells. Cell invasion by MG63, 143B and HOS cells was assessed via Transwell invasion assays; crystal violet staining of the cells that passed through the polycarbonate membrane after treatment with CAP (100 μM) and DDP (16.7 μM) alone or in combination for 24 h was observed by microscopy (a). The invasive abilities were quantified by counting the number of cells, and the percentage of the treated group compared to the control group (CAP-, DDP-) is presented as the mean ± SD of 3 independent experiments, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01 and ***p < 0.001 vs. the control (b). The expression levels of cell invasion-related proteins were measured by Western blotting (c). Statistical analyses of MMP-2 (d) and MMP-9 (e) in the three OS cell lines. The MMP activity of MMP-2 and MMP-9 was analyzed by gelatin zymography (f). After the last treatment, the mice were sacrificed, and the lungs were collected from the different treatment groups to assess distant metastatic foci (g). Representative histological profiles of lungs after different treatments as detected by H&E staining (h). The quantitative data are shown as the mean ± SD of 3 independent experiments; *p < 0.05 and **p < 0.01 vs. the control (CAP-, DDP-)