Effects of glucocorticoids on the growth and chemosensitivity of carcinoma cells are heterogeneous and require high concentration of functional glucocorticoid receptors

Figure 4 A: Immunocytochemical stain for GR expression in representing carcinoma cell lines. (A¹) and A²): SiHa cells, which had GR content about 8.1×10⁴/cell according to ligand binding assay; (A³) and (A⁴): HeLa cells, with GR content about 1.97×10⁴/cell; (A⁵) and (A⁶): N87 cells, with GR content about 5.0×103/cell. (A²), (A⁴), and (A⁵): cells treated with DEX for 3 h before harvest. In (A¹) and (A³), the GR immunoreactivity localized in cytoplasm. After DEX treatment, the immunoreactive GR translocalized to nuclei (A²) and (A⁴). The low GR content cancer cells N87 showed negligible immunoreactivity. B: Immunohistochemical stain for GR expression in human carcinoma tumor tissue samples. Non-small cell lung cancer tumor samples, with high GR expression (B^a), and low GR expression (B²). Breast cancer tumor samples, with high GR expression (B³), and low GR expression (B⁴).