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Quantifying the Autophagy-Triggering Effects of Drugs in Cell Spheroids with Live Fluorescence Microscopy

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Abstract

We present a 3D assay for the quantification of the autophagic flux in live cell spheroids by using the fluorescent reporter mRFP-GFP-LC3. The protocol describes the formation of the spheroids from the astrocytoma cell line U343, live long-term 3D fluorescence imaging of drug-treated spheroids, and the image processing workflow required to extract quantitative data on the autophagic flux.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for financial support (project ProMEBS) and Dr. Tamotsu Yoshimori (National Institute of Genetics, Shizuoka, Japan) for providing the mRFP-GFP-LC3 plasmid.

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Correspondence to Francesco Pampaloni .

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Ansari, N. et al. (2014). Quantifying the Autophagy-Triggering Effects of Drugs in Cell Spheroids with Live Fluorescence Microscopy. In: Robles-Flores, M. (eds) Cancer Cell Signaling. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1165. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0856-1_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0856-1_3

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  • Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-0855-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-0856-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Protocols

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