Fig. 7.

TAMs induce the cancer cells undergo epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT). a The HN4, HN6 and SCC9 cells presented typical cobblestone and epithelial-like appearances. The HN4-M, HN6-M and SCC9-M cells were scattered and spindle shaped, exhibited fibroblast-like appearances. The photographs were taken at 40x magnification. b The relative mRNA expression levels of E-cadherin, and vimentin was performed by real-time RT-PCR. The housekeeping gene GAPDH was used as the control. The data were reported as mean ± SD. c The EMT-related proteins E-cadherin and vimentin were examined by the Western blot, β-actin was used as a loading control. The data were reported as mean ± SD. * P < 0.05, ** P < 0.01