Hoechst 33258 staining. Hoechst 33258, which stains the
cell nucleus, is a membrane permeable dye with blue fluorescence.
Live cells with uniformly light blue nuclei were obviously detected
under fluorescence microscope after treatment with Hoechst
33258, whereas apoptotic cells had bright blue nuclei due to karyopyknosis
and chromatin condensation. However, the nuclei of
dead cells could not be stained. A549 cells treated with compound
5f at 15 mMfrom 12 to 24 h were stained with Hoechst 33258. A549
cells not treated with the 5f was used as control at for 24 h. The
results were given in Fig. 2
As shown in Fig. 2, cells not treated with compound 5f were
normally blue (in the web version). It was worth noting that, for 5f
treatment, the cells displayed strong blue fluorescence and indicated
typical apoptotic morphology after 12 and 24 h. The observation
revealed that compounds 5f induced apoptosis against A549
cell lines, consistent with the results for AO/EB double staining.