Figure 2
Nicotine increases the percentage of cells reaching late stage differentiation but not other morphological characteristics of DMSO-induced HL-60 cells. (A – D) Hema 3 staining of differentiating HL-60 cells: Promyelocytic HL-60 cells (A) were induced to differentiate 1.25% (v/v) DMSO over one (B), three (C), or five (D) days. Compared to undifferentiated HL-60 cells, the morphological characteristics of differentiating cells include reduced cell size, decreased nucleus/cytoplasma ratio, disappearance of nucleoli, transformation of nuclei, and fewer cytoplasmic granules. Images were taken on an Olympus BX41 microscopy with a magnification of 400× using a SONY 4.1 MP digital camera. p: promyelocytes; mc: myelocytes; mm: metamyelocytes; b: band cells; s: segmented neutrophil. The bars represent 10 μm. (E) DMSO exposure increased the mean percentage of cells differentiating beyond the promyelocytic stage over five-days, compared to DMSO-untreated control cells (n = 6, *p < 0.001); but nicotine had no statistically significant influence on the percentage of DMSO-treated HL-60 cells differentiating past the promyelocytic stage. (F) DMSO exposure increased the mean percentage of cells in late phases of differentiation (metamyelocytes, banded neutrophils and segmented neutrophils) after 5-days compared to DMSO-untreated control cells (n = 6, *p < 0.001); with nicotine (10-4 M) exposure during DMSO-induced differentiation further increasing the percentage of late phase cells compared to DMSO alone (n = 6, ¶ p < 0.05). Error bars represent standard deviations of the mean.