3-MA induced caspase-dependent cell death in HeLa cells.

<p>(A) HeLa cells were treated with 0, 2.5, 5 and 10 mM 3-MA. Cells were collected 0, 1 and 2 days post treatment initiation and subjected to trypan blue exclusion assay. At least 300 cells were counted for each sample. Bars represent standard deviation from three independent experiments. (B) Caspase-3 was activated upon 3-MA treatment. HeLa cells were treated with 0, 2.5, 5 or 10 mM 3-MA, and cells were collected and subjected to immunobloting 2 days post treatment initiation. Activation of caspase-3 was assessed with antibodies specific for both procaspase-3 and its active cleaved subunits. The molecular weight of cleaved subunits of caspas-3 is indicated. This blot is representative of three independent experiments. (C) z-VAD effectively antagonized 3-MA-induced cell death. HeLa cells were treated with 0, 5 or 10 mM 3-MA in the presence of 100 µM z-VAD or DMSO (used as a solvent control). Two days after treatment, the cells were collected and subjected to a trypan blue exclusion assay. At least 300 cells were counted for each sample. Bars represent the standard deviations from three independent experiments.