Figure 1

Valproic acid and butyrate repress Akt expression and induce apoptosis in HeLa cells. (A) Cell death was measured by flow cytometry analysis of subG1 population following propidium iodide staining of permibilized HeLa cells after exposure to valproic acid (VPA, 2 mM) or sodium butyrate (NaB, 5 mM) for 8, 16 or 24 hours. (B) Following 16 hours of valproic acid or butyrate treatment, the mRNA levels of Akt1, Akt2 and Akt3 in the HeLa cells were determined by quantitative real-time RT-PCR analysis with a TaqMan probe protocol. 18S rRNA was used as an internal control. Results show fold variations of treated cells in comparison to untreated controls. Error bars represent standard deviations of three independent experiments. (C) The relative mRNA abundance of Akt1, Akt2 and Akt3 isoforms of the HeLa cells was assessed by quantitative RT-PCR and plotted as fold variations of Akt1. Error bars represent the standard deviations of three independent experiments.