Journal: Cancers
Article Title: Mitochondrial Respiratory Defect Enhances Hepatoma Cell Invasiveness via STAT3/NFE2L1/STX12 Axis
doi: 10.3390/cancers12092632
Figure Lengend Snippet: STX12 is a key regulator of hepatoma cell invasiveness. ( A , B ) SNU423 cell was transfected with STX12 siRNA for 72 h. ( A ) Cell invasion assay using a Matrigel-coated Transwell system. Representative invaded cell images are shown in the right panel. ** p < 0.01 vs. siNC by the Student t-test. ( B ) Western blot (left) and cell growth rate (right). #1 and #2 indicate two different siRNAs for STX12. ( C , D ) Ch-L was transfected with STX12 plasmid for 48 h. ( C ) Cell invasion assay. Representative invaded cell images are shown in the right panel. ** p < 0.01 vs. GFP by the Student t-test. ( D ) Western blot (left) and cell growth rate (right). ( E – G ) SNU423 clone, which was stably suppressing NFE2L1 with sgNFE2L1 RNA, was further infected with lentivirus harboring STX12 or GFP. ( E ) Cell invasion assay. ** p < 0.01 vs. sgNC; # < 0.05 vs. GFP by the Student t -test. ( F ) Cell growth. ( G ) Western blot. ( H ) Immunohistochemistry of HCC tissue microarray, as described in ‘Materials and Methods’. Lower panel shows representative images for NFE2L1 and STX12 immunostaining. ( I , J ) Boxplots of the normalized enrichment score (NES) for EMT signature of the primary HCC tissues from the TCGA_LIHC dataset. Bottom, middle, and top lines of each box indicate the first quartile, median, and third quartile values, respectively. Whiskers represent the minimum and maximum values. p -values from Welch two-sample t -test are indicated. ( I ) Tumor samples were divided into high and low groups, according to the expression level of NFE2L1 (left) or STX12 (middle), respectively, as described in ‘Materials and Methods’. To evaluate the effect of co-expression on the EMT signature, tumor samples were divided into two groups, based on the co-expression level of both NFE2L1 and STX12 (right). ( J ) The NFE2L1 and STX12 co-expressing group (right panel of I) was further subdivided into an H ( n = 11) and L group ( n = 23) according to the NDUFA9 expression level. ( K ) Overall survival (OS) time of the H and L group was compared based on the Kaplan–Meier survival analysis. Statistical significance for KM survival was estimated by the Cox–Mantel log-rank test.
Article Snippet: Briefly, paraffin-embedded tissue slides of human HCC tissue microarray (TMA) (NBP2-30221, Novus Biologicals) were deparaffinized and rehydrated.
Techniques: Transfection, Invasion Assay, Western Blot, Plasmid Preparation, Stable Transfection, Infection, Immunohistochemistry, Microarray, Immunostaining, Expressing