Center for Molecular Medicine- Cancer Biology
I am excited that you all will have a chance to directly work with an oncologist from the Maine Medical Center Research Institute (MMCRI). Dr. Lucy Liaw has graciously volunteered her time to share her research and data.

In order to understand what Dr. Liaw is researching, you should be able to answer the following questions?
1. What are PC3 cells?
2. How are prostate cancer cells grown in the research laboratory? 3. What is cisplatin? 4. What is shRNA?

Date:
2/15/2013-03/10/2013

Purpose:
Examination of drug resistance in prostate cancer cell lines

Cell lines:
PC3-CTR

PC3-Slug shRNA 2

PC3-Slug sh2 shPTEN 1320

PC3-Slug sh2 shPTEN 3001

Drug:
Cisplatin

Experimental procedure

Drug resistance was tested by using chemotherapeutic drugs including Cisplatin (Sigma, MO)

Cisplatin was dissolved in a minimal volume of DMSO and Adriamycin was

Drug resistance was examined by using colony forming assay.

Briefly, 100,000 cells were seeded in each well of a 6-well cell-culture plate and allowed to grow for 48 hr.

Cells were treated for 24 hr with cisplatin

Cisplatin concentration is ranging from 50, 100, 200 µmol.

After treatment, cells were reseeded at colony forming density (1,000 cells per dish) and allowed to grow for 14–21

days until colonies emerged. Colonies were stained with crystal violet and counted.

Sample pictures

Experiment 1: Dose response of cisplatin on survival of PC3 prostate cancer cells at 24h and 120h

Cell line:
Cisplatin Dose/ (mg)
Number of Cell Colonies
Dish 1 (A)
Number of Cell Colonies
Dish 2 (B)
Number of Cell Colonies
Dish 3 (C)

PC3 cells
0
87
86
78

24hour
50
80
81
88

100
80
75
77

200
82
83
74

PC3 cells
0
107
111
102

120h
50
105
111
108

100
112
107
108

200
62
63