Fig. 5

Impact of DSC2 knock down and DSC2 overexpression on tumour cell aggregation and chemosensitivity in 3D. A DSC2 knock down in MDA-MB231-BR cells led to an impaired tumour cell aggregation in a 3D spheroid formation assay (upper panel), whereas DSC2 overexpression increased the compactness of the spheroids in comparison to WT, which could not be dissociated by mechanical disaggregation. B DNA double-strand breaks were quantified in MDA-MB231-BR DSC2 knock down cell vs. control (upper panel) and in MDA-MB231 DSC2 overexpressing cells vs. WT growing in 3D (polyHEMA) after cisplatin treatment using immunocytochemical detection of phosphorylated H2AX (γH2AX). The quantification of the aforementioned staining revealed a significant increase of cisplatin-induced cell cytotoxicity in DSC2 knock down cells (upper panel) and a significant reduced amount of DNA double-strand breaks in DSC2 overexpressing cells (lower panel)