Fig. 1.

AR suppresses HCC cells invasion.

(a), verification of AR over-expression by western blot assays; (b), chamber-transwell invasion assays showed that over-expression of AR decreased the cell invasion in all 3 HCC cell lines (SKhep1, HA22T, and HepG2). Upper panel, representative images of the chamber-transwell invasion assays; Lower panel, quantification of the invaded cells. The invaded cells were counted in 10 randomly chosen microscopic fields (100 ×) of each experiment and pooled. Each sample was run in triplicate and multiple experiments were performed. (c-d), 4 individual research databases clearly showed that AR levels were lower in advanced stages compared with early stages, implicating that AR played a vital role in late-stage HCC and was negative correlated with HCC metastasis. Data were extracted from Oncomine® Platform (c) and Gene Expression Omnibus Datasets (d). (e), the average AR IHC staining scores of patients were evaluated by experienced pathologists both in high-invasive group (N = 13) and low-invasive group (N = 89). Lower AR IHC staining scores were found in high-invasive group as compared to those found in low-invasive group. (f), recurrence-free survival curve of HCC patients who received surgery (N = 92) indicated that patients with HCC (AR+) (defined by IHC staining) had significant higher recurrence-free survival (HR = 0.3711) than patients with HCC (AR-). p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. * p < 0.05 and ** p < 0.01.