Fig. 6

Pentoxifylline blunted the 5-FU-mediated increase of ALDHhigh cells in PDOs (a) 48 h after the indicated treatments, freshly disaggregated and filtered PDO-derived cells were analyzed for their ALDH activity by means of the ALDEFLUOR assay as described in the methods. Representative dot plots. b Graphs showing the percentage of ALDHhigh cells from quadruplicate experiments during a (12-96 h) time course. c A 5-FU- stimulated increase of IL-6 mediated the emergence of ALDHhigh cells. Representative histograms showing the levels of ALDHhigh cells in the PDO#1 and PDO#4 pretreated with a mock- or a IL-6-neutralizing antibody (100 ng/ml, 1 h) before being challenged with ctrl- or 5-FU as in (a). ELISA assay. Statistics: * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; ns: not significant