Fig. 8

Particle uptake quantification in monoculture UM-SCC-17A cells and co-culture with THP-1 cells by flow cytometry. Grating strategy to identify respective cell populations in mixed cell culture (a–h). Gating is showing one representative experiment of cells exposure to 500 nm PLGA particles. With initial live gating in the y-axis with a side scatter (SSC-A) and x-axis with a forward scattering (FSC-A), P2 a were further gated with FSC-A versus APC-A to differentiate the THP-1 cells in P4 c from UM-SCC-17A cell population in P3 (monoculture cells (b) and mixed cells (c)). The cell population of P3 further displayed as counts versus FITC plots (P5) in non-exposed cells (d), monoculture cells (e), and co-cultured cells (h). Also, P6 is the counts versus FITC-A plot originated from P4 population in non-exposed cells (g) and co-cultured cells (f). Both types of cells efficiently ingested the 500 nm PLGA indicated by the solid histogram completed shifted to the right side of the x-axis, indicating particles are taken up by all exposed cells. Quantification of particle-laden numbers (i) in both types of cells for mono-culture and co-culture systems