Figure 5.

Lack of autophagy promotes RPE cells EMT. (a) Western blot analysis of p62 and LC3 in ARPE-19 cells stable knockdown of Atg7. (b) Western blot analysis of EMT markers in ARPE-19 cells stable knockdown of Atg7. Quantification of protein expression were shown as the means±S.D. **P<0.01 vs shNC. (c) Immunocytochemistry staining showed disorder arrangement of N-cadherin (red) and closed Vimentin (green) cage in Atg7-knockdown cells; scale bar, 50 μm. (d) Transwell assay showed enhanced ability of migration in Atg7-knockdown cells. scale bar, 100 μm. (e) Quantification of migration abilities of non-silencing cells and Atg7-knockdown cells in panel (d), expressed as the means±S.D. n=4, **P<0.01. (f) Western blot analysis of MMP-2/9 in Atg7-knockdown cells. Quantification of protein expression were shown as the means±S.D. *P<0.05, **P<0.01 vs shNC. (g) Collagen gel contraction assay in non-silencing cells and Atg7-knockdown cells. (h) Quantification of the percentage of gel contraction by measuring the gel size at the 10 d when compared to the initial size in each group, expressed as the means±S.D. n=4, **P<0.01