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Results and discussions
Anti-tumoral activity of IMQ in Caco-2 cells
To evaluate the biological effects of IMQ, an agonist for TLR7, in colon cancer, first we determined TLR7 PF-04449913 by RT-PCR. Expression of TLR7 was detected in Caco-2 cells, but expression levels were lower than THP-1, a human monocytic cell line (Fig. 1A). We then assessed the activity of IMQ on cell growth by cell counting and viability assays, respectively. The administration of IMQ suppressed cell growth, as determined by cell number counting for 3 days (Fig. 1B). Additionally, we observed a reduction in the viability of Caco-2 cells as the result of restrained cell growth after IMQ treatment by measuring the cytotoxicity of cells in same cell suspension mixtures (Fig. 1C). Collectively, our results demonstrated that IMQ exerts direct anti-tumoral effects in Caco-2 cells through activation of TLR7, rather than indirect immune modulation effects.
Fig. 1.
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