Figure 4. The effects of reduced autophagy on viability and invasion activity of JEG-3 cells.

(A) Representative immunoblots for beclin-1, DRAM, and LC3B-II from JEG-3 cells transfected with or without specific siRNAs are shown. β-actin was used to normalize loading variability. Lane 1, cells transfected with control siRNAs; lane 2, cells transfected with BECN1 siRNA; lane 3, cells transfected with DRAM siRNA; and lane 4, cells transfected with LC3B siRNA. There were no differences in viability (B) and invasion activity (D) under standard culture condition between cells transfected with control siRNAs and cells transfected with specific siRNAs. JEG-3 cells cultured at 2% O₂ with 5% CO₂/balanced N₂ but without siRNA transfection throughout the experiments were used as the positive controls for the invasion assay. Scale bar = 100 μm (C). Data are presented as mean ± S.D. A total of 5 individual experiments were performed (D).