Fig. 1.

MiR-139 is down-regulated in HCC cells and tissues and associated with poor patient outcome. a MiR-139 level was measured in HL-7702, HepG2, Hep3B and SMMC7721 cells by qRT-PCR. b MiR-139 level was measured in the cancerous tissues and adjacent non-cancerous tissues in 20 HCC patients. c and (d) MiR-139 level in the LIHC dataset in TCGA was retrieved and analyzed for association with the clinicopathological features of HCC patients. c Mir-139 level in HCC tissues compared to non-cancerous tissues. d MiR-139 level in HCC patients at different pathological stages. e and (f) Hep3B and SMMC7721 were treated with DMSO, 5-Aza (5 μmol/L) or TSA (200 μmol/L) for 24 h. qRT-PCR was performed to quantify miR-139 expression. g The OS of HCC patients with low or high miR-139 level was analyzed with Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, and the curves were compared with the Log-rank test. The Q1–4 represent the 25% quantile of miR-139 expression. Q1 represents the lowest 25%, Q2 represents 25–50%, Q3 is the 50–75% and Q4 is the 75–100%. All experiments were repeated 3 times. * P < 0.05, ** P < 0.01