Fig. 5

Sensitivity of cancer cell sphorids to cancer drugs in PFKFB3-or PFKFB4-silenced SAS and TW2.6 cells. The cell viability of spheroid cells silenced with scrambled siRNA or siRNA against A PFKFB3 or B PFKFB4 for 3 days then in the absence or presence of cisplatin (CIS, 50 µM) or paclitaxel (PTX, 0.025 and 2 µM) for 24 h was measured using the CellTiterGlo 3D assay. C mRNA levels of cancer stemness markers (CD166, CD44, ABCG2, ALDH1A1, ALDH1A2 and EpCAM) in PFKFB4-silenced SAS cells were assessed by RT-qPCR. The 10 nM scrambled siRNA (siCtrl) or siRNA against PFKFB3 or PFKFB4 (siPFKFB3 or siPFKFB4) were transfected into SAS cells for 72 h. All data were represented as the average ± SD from 3 independent experiments. The significant differences between scramble control and knocked down cells were indicated as ^* p < 0.05, ^** p < 0.01, and ^*** p < 0.001