Fig. 3

Detection of different cell deaths after treating SCC4 by flow cytometer assay after four h and 24 h incubation periods. A The DOX-treated group reveals the necrotic effect at both intervals. Meanwhile, curcumin presents diverse effects on SCC4 cells, where the early stage reveals late apoptosis and necrosis, while the late stage shows elevated necrotic cell deaths. On the other hand, nanocurcumin exerts a prominent apoptotic effect on SCC4 cells at both incubation periods. B Blot charts demonstrate the flow cytometer results at early (4 h) and late (24 h) incubation periods. Cancer cells treated with DOX and curcumin reveal a drop in SCC4 viability caused by the significant necrosis at both intervals. Meanwhile, the decreases in cell viability by nanocurcumin are due to the profound increases of early and late apoptotic indices at both timelines. The data are the mean ± SD of three independent experiments. Asterisk denotes statistical significance, where *** (p < 0.001). While ns implies not significant with p > 0.05