Figure 4. miR-142 is an upstream regulator of THBS4 in HCC cells.

A. Putative microRNAs targeting THBS4 as predicted by TargetScan. B. The prediction and correlation heat map in different dataset by miRGator 3.0. C. Relative expression of miR-142 in 30 pairs of HCC and adjacent normal samples by RT-qPCR analysis (T: tumor, AN: adjacent normal). D. Inverse correlation of THBS4 and miR-142 in a group of HCC samples based on the RT-qPCR analysis. E. HuH7 cells co-transfected with P-miR-142 with wild-type (wt) or mutant (mut) pGL3-THBS4 constructs followed by luciferase reporter assays. Data were normalized by the ratio of Firefly and Renilla luciferase activities measured at 48 h post-transfection. The bar graph shows the mean ±SD in three independent transfection experiments. *P<0.05. F. Western blotting analysis of THBS4 expression in P-miR-control and P-miR-142-transfected HuH7 cells.