Smmc 7721

The SMMC-7721 cell lines in the present work were purchased commercially from KeyGEN BioTECH. SMMC-7721 cells (human hepatoma cells, 10⁴ cells per dish) were incubated in RPMI-1640 medium containing 10% FBS at 37°C for 24 hours. After incubation, the solution was replaced with fresh medium containing 50 µg mL⁻¹ FITC-labeled PEGylated MGNRs@DMSSs and incubated for another 4 hours. The cells were then washed three times with PBS and incubated with DAPI for 10 minutes. Cells were then imaged with an excitation wavelength of 404 nm (for DAPI) and 488 nm (for FITC).

The HepG2 (hepatocellular carcinoma) cells and A549 (lung carcinoma) cells were purchased from American Type Culture Collection (ATCC, Manassas, VA, USA). The SMMC-7721 (hepatocellular carcinoma) cells were purchased from KeyGEN BioTECH Co. Ltd (Nanjing, China). The HepG2 cells, A549 cells and SMMC-7721 cells were grown in EMEM medium (ATCC), DMEM medium (Life Technologies, Carlsbad, CA, USA) and RPMI1640 (Life Technologies), respectively. All the media were supplemented with 10% foetal bovine serum (FBS, Biological Industries, Cromwell, CT, USA), 100 U ml⁻¹ penicillin and 100 μg ml⁻¹ streptomycin. Exponentially growing cultures were maintained in a humidified atmosphere of 5% CO₂ at 37 °C. Phosphate-buffered saline (PBS, pH 7.4) and supplements for cell culture were purchased from Life Technologies. Arsenic trioxide (As₂O₃), fluorouracil (5-FU) and epirubicin (EPI) were purchased from Beijing Shuanglu Pharmaceutical Co. (Beijing, China), Tianjin Jinyao Amino Acid Co. (Tianjin, China) and Pfizer Co. (Wuxi, China), respectively. Sodium arsenite (NaAsO₂, purity ⩾90%), cisplatin (purity ⩾99%) and cycloheximide (CHX, purity ⩾94%) were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (St Louis, MO, USA). The CPT (purity ⩾99%) was purchased from Cayman Chemical (Ann Arbor, MI, USA) and was dissolved in DMSO (Sigma-Aldrich).

Human liver cancer cell lines, namely, PLC/PRF/5, SMMC-7721, and HepG2, were purchased from KeyGen Biotech (Nanjing, China). All the cell lines were maintained in RPMI 1640 medium supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (HyClone, USA) and 1% penicillin–streptomycin in a humidified atmosphere (37 °C, 5% CO₂). To obtain a hypoxic condition, the cells were cultured in a CO₂ incubator with 94% N₂, 5% CO₂, and 1% O₂. Cells were put in hypoxic conditions for 24 h concurrently treated with salidroside (the time of wound-healing assay is 48 h).

The following human cell lines were used: SMMC-7721 (GCC-LI0007RT), Bel-7402 (GCC-LI0008RT), Bel-7404 (GCC-LI0005RT), Hep3B (GCC-LI0002RT), and Huh7 (GCC-LI0006RT) HCC cell lines, the hepatoblastoma cell line HepG2 (GCC-LI0003RT), the liver cancer cell line SK-Hep-1 (GCC-LI0001RT), the MHCC-97H (KG340) HCC cell line from Jiangsu KeyGEN BioTech Corp., Ltd (Nanjing, China), and the MHCC-97L HCC cell line gifted by the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University. The human normal hepatocyte cell line L-02 was obtained from the Shanghai Institute of Cell Biology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Shanghai, China) and cultured as previously described [19 (link)]. The cell lines were authenticated using STR profiling and tested for mycoplasma contamination.