Figure 3. Knockdown of β-catenin leads to a loss of hTERT expression independently of c-Myc. Specific siRNA mediated knockdown of β-catenin leads to a substantial downregulation of hTERT- mRNA in DLD-1 and SW480 cells both in the absence or presence of c-Myc expression plasmid. Expression levels are normalized to those of the HPRT1 gene. Data are represented as mean ± SD. The experiment was done in duplicates and repeated at least twice. Representative examples are shown. Student’s t test (two-sided) was used for comparisons. For the analyses, p values < 0.05 considered significant. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.