Fig. 3.

SOX9 induces EMT and promotes distant metastasis in NSCLC cells and a zebrafish model of NSCLC. a, b Western blotting and immunofluorescence analyses were used to determine the protein level of epithelial cell markers (E-cadherin and γ-catenin) and mesenchymal cell markers (vimentin and N-cadherin) in A549-SOX9 and NCI-H460-SOX9 cell lines and their corresponding control A549-Vector and NCI-H460-Vector cells. c, d Western blotting and immunofluorescence analyses were used to determine the protein level of epithelial cell markers (E-cadherin and γ-catenin) and mesenchymal cell markers (vimentin and N-cadherin) in A549-SOX9 sh1# and NCI-H460-SOX9 sh1# cells and their corresponding control A549-pSuper-Vector and NCI-H460-pSuper-Vector cells. e, f Zebrafish embryos injected with either SOX9-overexpression cells or SOX9-knockdown cells were imaged live under an Olympus^® BX51 microscope. SOX9-overexpressing cells and SOX9-knockdown cells are labeled with red fluorescence and zebrafish are labeled with green fluorescence. Quantification of the number of disseminated tumor foci (n = 5 per group) in the tail regions of Zebrafish embryos, ***p < 0.0001