Figure 5

As a rule fibroids display a higher nutlin-3 sensitivity than matching myometrium. Explants from five fibroids from three patients were checked for their nutlin-3 sensitivity after incubation with 3 μM or 10 μM nutlin-3 respectively, for 72 hours. As an indicator for sensitivity the expression of BAX (A, B) and p21 (C, D) mRNA was determined by qRT-PCR. Myometrium (violet columns) was always set 100% and the expression of the corresponding fibroids (light blue columns) refers to that value. Numbers below each row indicate the patient's lab no. (cf. Table 1). The corresponding leiomyomas are depicted in numerical order. Statistically significances are given by asterisks (*, p < 0.05; **, p < 0.01; ***, p < 0.001).