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Fig. 4 | BMC Medicine

Fig. 4

From: Natural killer cell-based adoptive immunotherapy eradicates and drives differentiation of chemoresistant bladder cancer stem-like cells

Fig. 4

NK cells from bladder cancer (BC) patients have impaired cytolytic activity and are ineffective against cancer stem-like cells. a Cytolytic activity of resting and IL-2/IL-15-activated NK cells after 48 h of activation derived from BC patients against BC parental cells and spheres after 4 h co-culture at a 10:1 ratio measured by the 51Cr release assay. b Comparative analysis of lytic activity of NK cells derived from HDs and BC patients against spheres and parental cells. c Flow cytometry analysis of the natural cytotoxicity receptors, adhesion molecule CD62L, differentiation marker CD57, and the cytokine profile of BC patient (gray boxes, n = 10) and HD (white boxes, n = 8) NK cells. Graphs represent the percentage of positive cells (mean ± SEM). *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, and ***P < 0.001 HD versus BC patients. d Fold-change mRNA expression levels of stemness-related markers in spheres treated with NK-SN from BC patients relative to untreated spheres set as 1 (mean ± SEM, n = 5, *P < 0.0 5 and **P < 0.01). e Immunohistochemical staining for CD56 in serial sections of tumoral tissue from BC patients with non-muscle-invasive, low grade; non-muscle-invasive, high grade; and muscle-invasive tumors. Original magnification: ×400

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