Figure 1.

Flow cytometric analysis confirmed the specific binding of biotinylated asialofetuin to ASGPR. HepG2, MHC97H, PLC, SMMC-7721 and SK-Hep1 are human hepatoma cell lines expressing ASGPR. The human gastric cancer cell line MGC-803 and the HeLa human cervical adenocarcinoma cell lines are both negative for ASGPR. All the cells were stained using biotinylated asialofetuin and antibiotin-luorescein isothiocyanate (FITC), excluding the HepG2 cells stained with PBS and antibiotin-FITC, which served as the controls. After ASGPR was knocked down in HepG2 and PLC cells, biotinylated asialofetuin binding was barely detectable in these two cell lines