Preclinical evaluation of azathioprine plus buthionine sulfoximine in the treatment of human hepatocarcinoma and colon carcinoma

Figure 1 Effect of azathioprine treatment in HepG2 cells and sensitization of HepG2 cells by buthionine sulfoximine pretreatment. A: Cell viability (by trypan blue exclusion assay); B: Metabolic activity (by MTT assay) of HepG2 cells treated at different times with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) or azathioprine (AZA) at different concentrations; C: Metabolic activity of cultured HepG2 cells pretreated for 24 h without or with buthionine sulfoximine (BSO) (500 μmol/L) and then cotreated with AZA at different concentrations for 24 h, or D with AZA (100 μmol/L) at different times; E: Glutathione (GSH) content of HepG2 cells pretreated for 24 h with DMSO or BSO (500 μmol/L); F: GSH content of HepG2 cells pretreated for 24 h with DMSO or BSO (500 μmol/L) and then cotreated with AZA (300 μmol/L) for different times. The significant differences with respect to control were statistically analyzed by analysis of variance with the Bonferroni post hoc test. ^aP < 0.05; ^bP < 0.01; ^cP < 0.001.