An Annexin V FITC Apoptosis Kit was purchased from Calbiochem. All the solvents and other chemicals used were of analytical grade from Gibco™, Invitrogen™, Sigma–Aldrich and Merck. All solutions were prepared with Fluorouracil price water purified by the Milli-Q® system (Millipore). BlL was purified according to the protocol previously described by Nunes et al. (2011). The cell lines used in the cytotoxicity assays were K562 (chronic myelocytic

leukemia), NCI-H292 (human lung mucoepidermoid carcinoma cells) and Hep-2 (human larynx epidermoid carcinoma cells) obtained from the Instituto Adolfo Lutz (São Paulo, Brazil). The non-tumorigenic cell line (HaCaT), derived from human keratinocytes was purchased from Cell Line Service (CLS, Heidelberg, Germany). The cells were maintained in DMEM supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum, 2 mM glutamine, 100 U/mL penicillin and 100 μg/mL streptomycin and maintained at 37 °C with 5% CO2. Cytotoxicity of BlL was tested in tumor cell lines (K562, NCI-H292 and Hep-2) and in non-tumorigenic cell line (HaCaT). PFT�� mouse The cells (105 cells/mL for adherent cells or 0.3 × 106 cells/mL for suspended cells) were plated in 96-well microtiter plates and after 24 h, BlL (0.07–50 μg/mL) dissolved in DMSO was added to each well and incubated for 72 h at 37 °C. Then, MTT (5.0 mg/mL) was

added to the plate and growth of tumor cells was estimated by the ability of living cells to reduce the yellow tetrazolium to a blue formazan

product (Mosmann, HSP90 1983; Alley et al., 1988). Negative control groups received only DMSO; etoposide (1.25–20 μg/mL) was used as a positive control. After 3 h (for suspend cells) or 2 h (for adherent cells), the formazan product was dissolved in DMSO and absorbance was measured using a multi-plate reader (Multiplate Reader Thermoplate). The BlL effect was quantified as the percentage of control absorbance of reduced dye at 450 nm. The K562 suspension (0.3 × 106 cells/mL) was seeded in 96-well microtiter plates and incubated at 37 °C at 5% CO2 for 24 h; after this period, BlL at IC50 was added. After 48 h the cells were stained with annexin V and propidium iodide using Annexin V–FITC Kit (Calbiochem®) following the protocol provided by the manufacturer and analyzed by an epifluorescence microscope (Carl Zeiss, Gottingen, Germany) at 1000× magnification under oil immersion with filters for LP 515 nm emission and BP 450–490 nm for excitement. A minimum of 200 cells was counted in every sample. Mitochondrial depolarization was evaluated by incorporation of JC-1 (5,5′,6,6′-tetrachloro-1,1′,3,3′-tetraethylbenzimidazolcarbocyanine iodide), a fluorescent lipophilic cationic probe (Kang et al., 2002; Guthrie and Welch, 2006). The probe JC-1 is freely permeable to cells and undergoes reversible transformation from a monomer to an aggregate form (Jagg). K562 suspension (0.