Figure 5. The regulation of miR-21-5p on the sphere formation ability and the stem-like cells phenotype of keratinocytes from keloid and normal skin.

After keloid keratinocytes and normal skin keratinocytes were transfected with miR-21-5p mimic or inhibitor and their corresponding negative controls for 72 or 48 hours, respectively, (a,b) the average sphere numbers and cells number were detected by the sphere-forming assay. (c) The expressions of stem-like cells-associated markers (CD44 and ALDH1) were examined by western blot analysis and normalized by the expression of GAPDH. The western blot data are expressed as fold change relative to the mean value of control group. Statistical significance was obtained using Independent-Samples t-test for sphere-forming assay and Paired t-test for western blot analysis. Data was shown as the mean ± SEM of 3 independent cells from 3 replicates. Scale bar: 100 μm. (*p < 0.05).