Fig. 4

Gal-8 partial silencing increases apoptosis in U87 cells. a Flow cytometry analysis of cell cycle and fragmented DNA. The histogram shows the percentage of U87 cells (transduced with shC or shGal-8#5) in different phases of the cell cycle and the sub-G1 phase containing fragmented DNA, indicative of apoptotic cells. The proportion of sh-Gal-8#5-transduced cells compared with shC cells decreased in G0/G1 and G2/M, while increased in S and more significantly (sixfold) in Sub-G1. b Apoptosis assessed by caspase-3 activation. U87 cells transduced with shC or shGal-8#5 and treated for cleaved caspase-3 indirect immunofluorescence were analyzed by flow cytometry (b) a representative dot blot of two experiments with the corresponding graph and an histogram of four experiments with an inset graph representing normalized mean fluorescence (MF) intensity of cleaved caspase-3 reveals increased apoptosis in shGal-8-#5-transduced cells. (*p < 0.05). c Apoptotic cells detected by indirect immunofluorescence against cleaved caspase-3 and Hoechst stained nucleus