Fig. 7

Roles of ROS/JNK and Akt/mTOR signaling pathway in G2/M phase arrest, apoptosis and autophagy triggered by celastrol. Cells were pretreated with MK (2 μM) for 5 h or Ra (1 μM) or NAC or SP for 2 h, and then treated with 3 μM celastrol for 24 h. a Cell viability was measured by CCK8 assay. b Cell cycle distribution was evaluated by flow cytometry. The cell cycle distribution percentages are presented as histograms. c The apoptosis-related proteins, cleaved PARP and Caspase-3, -8, -9 and the autophagy-related proteins, LC3 and P62 as well as p-JNK, p-p38 were analyzed by western blotting. β-actin was used as an internal control. Data are presented as the Mean ± SD (n = 3). *P < 0.05, ***P < 0.001 significantly different compared with the control group, ^#P < 0.05, ^##P < 0.01, ^###P < 0.001 significantly different compared with the celastrol treatment group