Fig. 3. Nonmonotone BACH1 invasion landscape in engineered MDA-MB-231 cells.
a, Experimental design for measuring and calculating invasiveness. b, Representative images of invading cells at the bottom of the inserts after 16 h–24 h invasion assays. Cell number was determined using nuclear staining and GFP fluorescence. Scale bar, 200 µm. c, Invasiveness of low-noise mNF-BACH1 (BL) and high-noise mNF-BACH1 (BH) clones over increasing dox concentrations (n = 3). d, Invasiveness of low-noise mNF-GFP (GL) and high-noise mNF-GFP (GH) clones at increasing dox concentrations (n = 3). e, Invasiveness at 0, 0.5 and 10 ng ml−1 dox levels for mNF-BACH1 versus mNF-GFP clones (n = 3, one-way ANOVA for cross-comparison among four samples at each dose and unpaired two-tailed t-test for every comparison between low-noise and high-noise clones. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, ****P < 0.0001). f, Expression noise difference (ΔCV%, left y axis) and mean difference (ΔMean, right y axis) versus invasiveness difference (ΔInvasiveness) at different dox inductions between low-noise and high-noise mNF-BACH1 clones. Δ = BH − BL, n = 3, Pearson correlation coefficients for ΔCV% versus ΔInvasiveness, r = 0.6611, P = 0.0374; for ΔMean versus ΔInvasiveness, r = −0.3477, P = 0.3248. g, Invasiveness of low-noise mNF-BACH1 (BL) and high-noise mNF-BACH1 (BH) clones versus eGFP::BACH1 expression (fluorescence) level. Pink and cyan arrows indicate hemin concentrations needed to degrade BACH1 levels along an upslope, at 10 ng ml−1 dox to resemble 0.5 ng ml−1 dox induction, and along a downslope, at 0.5 ng ml−1 dox to resemble 0.3 ng ml−1 dox induction, respectively. h, Predictable, opposite shifts of invasiveness for low-noise mNF-BACH1 (BL) and high-noise mNF-BACH1 (BH) clones when treated with hemin to induce degradation along an upslope and a downslope, compared to control samples. Pink and cyan arrows indicate hemin-dependent BACH1 degradation corresponding to the upslope and downslope in g. Unpaired two-tailed t-test was used for each comparison, n = 3, P > 0.05. NS, not significant.