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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Jun 13.
Published in final edited form as: Small. 2011 Sep 16;7(22):3158–3162. doi: 10.1002/smll.201101018

Figure 3.

Figure 3

Mimic miR-20a Au NPs regulate multiple known miR-20a targets and promote cell proliferation. (A) Upper panel: the transcription factor E2F1 has two miR-20a binding sites at positions 386–392 and 979–985 in its 3′-UTR. Lower panel (bar graph): ectopic introduction of miR-20a by mimic miRNA Au NPs inhibits the activity of luciferase gene containing E3F1 3′-UTR. (B) The upper panel shows the binding site of miR-20a at position 272–278 of PTEN 3′-UTR. The lower panel (bar graph) indicates that the mimic miR-20a Au NPs cause reduction in the activity of luciferase gene containing PTEN 3′-UTR. (C) miR-20a Au NPs treatment suppresses doxorubicin induced apoptosis in PC-3 cells. After treatment with doxorubicin, PC-3 cells transfected with Au NPs functionalized with non-targeting sequences show a 3-fold increase in Caspase 3/7 activity, an indication of apoptosis. Caspase activity in miR-20a Au NPs treated PC-3 cells remains unchanged with or without doxorubicin indicating an inhibition of apoptosis induced by doxorubicin. The error bars indicate S.D. from 3 different experiments in (A), (B) and 6 different experiments in (C). The groups of NT-Au NPs and mimic miRNA-Au NPs in (A) and (B) have P values less than 0.05.