Effect of ABGE on the apoptosis of SGC-7901 cells. First, SGC-7901 cells were used as an in vitro model to evaluate their apoptotic status following treatment with three dosages of ABGE. It was observed that the morphology of ABGE-treated cells changed from a more elongated fibroblast-like morphology to a round, smaller and packed appearance of epithelial cells 24 h after exposure to ABGE, indicating that SGC-7901 cells began to exhibit morphological features of apoptosis (Fig. 1A). Flow cytometry (FCM) was performed to further confirm the effects of ABGE on the induction of apoptosis. FCM with PI staining revealed that the apoptosis rates of SGC-7901 cell line treated with 10, 50 or 100 mg/ml ABGE for 48 h were 10.9±3.9%, 16.7±4.8% and 22.7±5.8%, respectively, and were significantly higher than that in the negative control (Fig. 1B and C). The results of FCM indicated that the effect of ABGE on apoptosis of SGC-7901 cells occurred in a dose-dependent manner.