Figure 3.

CISD2 plays a key role in HCC cell proliferation and tumorigenicity in vitro. A. Western blotting analysis of CISD2 expression in the ShRNA-vector, CISD2-silenced, SK-Hep1 and HepG2 cells. α-Tubulin was used as a loading control. B. MTT assay indicated that the growth rate decreased in CISD2-silenced cells compared with that in ShRNA-vector cells. The absorbance at day 1-5 was normalized to the absorbance at day 0 used as control (100%). C. Colony formation assays show that growth rates are decreased in CISD2-silenced cells. The number of colonies was quantified in the colony formation assay. Each bar represents the mean ± SD of three independent experiments. D. Anchorage-independent growth assays of CISD2-silenced cells and ShRNA-vector cells. The number of colonies with a diameter larger than 0.1 mm was quantified after 10 days of culture. *P<0.05.