Fig. 1

Arginine depletion inhibits ovarian cancer cell motility. a Control, hArgI treated and SKOV3 cells treated with hArgI in combination with citrulline were grown to confluency before creating a wound in the cell monolayer. Cell images of the same wound frame area were taken directly after the wound was made (t = 0) and 72 h later (t = 72). The micrographs represent the wound profile of the cells treated as indicated at t = 0 and t = 72. Scale bar is 100 μm. The graph is a quantitation of the wound closure rate using ImageJ. The wound closure rate is expressed as fold change relative to the untreated control. The data represent the mean ± SEM from 3 assays. The results were significant with p < 0.05. b Dose response in wound closure rate of SKOV3 cells treated with the indicated increasing concentrations of hArgI. Data are expressed relative to the untreated control and represent the mean ± SEM from 3 assays. The results were significant with p < 0.05. c SKOV3 cells were treated as described previously for 72 h before images of randomly moving cells in media were captured. Cell images were captured at 1 min interval for 2 h. The average migrated distance (in μm) was measured by tracking the images using ImageJ software and the speed was calculated by dividing the distance over time. Left panel: Bar graph illustrating the speed (μm/min) of control, hArgI treated, and hArgI treated SKOV3 cells in combination with citrulline, respectively. Right panel: Bar graph illustrating the fold change of hArgI treated SKOV3 cells migration relative to the control. c Dose response in random migration of SKOV3 cells treated with the indicated increasing concentrations of hArgI. Cell images were captured at 1 min interval for 2 h. The average migrated distance (in μm) was measured by tracking the images using ImageJ software and the speed was calculated by dividing the distance over time. Data are expressed as fold change of the migration of SKOV3 treated with different concentrations of hArgI relative to the untreated control. e Caov-3 cells were treated as described previously for 72 h before images of randomly moving cells in media were captured. Cell images were captured at 1 min interval for 2 h. The average migrated distance (in μm) was measured by tracking the images using ImageJ software and the speed was calculated by dividing the distance over time. Left panel: Bar graph illustrating the speed (μm/min) of control, hArgI treated, and hArgI treated SKOV3 cells in combination with citrulline, respectively. Right panel: Bar graph illustrating the fold change of hArgI treated SKOV3 cells migration relative to the control