Fig 2: Dexamethasone induces PDGFR mediated survival signalling. (A) Functional characteristics of T98G cells treated with 25 µM DEXA for 18 h revealed by GSEA using GO term and PID gene set collections. (B) qRT-PCR analysis for PDGFRA, PDGFRB and PDGFB in the indicated cell lines represented as mean fold change of triplicates treated with DEXA for 18 h relative to DMSO. (C) Western blot analysis for PDGFRA and PDGFRB in the indicated cell lines either untreated or treated with DEXA for 18 h. Beta-actin served as loading control. (D) Western blot analysis for PDGFRA, PDGFRB and the indicated phospho-specific antibodies in T98G cells either untreated or treated with DEXA for 18 h. The lysate of one experiment was run on several lanes per blot, which were probed in parallel. Beta-actin serves as loading control and representative controls are shown. (E) Western blot analysis for phospho-SFK (using a phospho SRC antibody) and phospho-STAT5 in the indicated cell lines either untreated or treated with DEXA for 18 h. Beta-actin served as loading control. (F) Co-expression analysis of the indicated genes from the TCGA Glioblastoma dataset. (G) qRT-PCR analysis for BCL2L1 and MCL1 in the indicated cell lines represented as mean fold change of triplicates treated with DEXA for 18 h relative to DMSO. (H) qRT-PCR analysis as in (G). Cells were treated with DEXA in the absence or presence of 200 nM ponatinib for 18 h. (I) Quantification of the relative cell number of the indicated cell lines grown in the absence or presence of 25 µM DEXA. Data represent the mean ± SEM (n = 3). (J) Quantification of the relative cell number of the indicated cell lines grown with or without 25 µM DEXA in the absence or presence of 25 nM or 100 nM ponatinib (Pon) or 1 µM or 3 µM sunitinib (Sun). Data represent mean ± SEM (n = 3). (K) Quantification of the relative cell number of T98G cells grown with or without 25 µM DEXA in the absence or presence of 5 µM S63845 (S63), 1 µM navitoclax (Nav) or 5 µM venetoclax (Ven). Data represent mean ± SEM (n = 3). ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.