Figure 1.

DMSO increases human NTCP levels during CMV promoter-driven overexpression, while it also increases endogenous cellular levels. (a) mRNA levels of NTCP in HepG2 cells following lentiviral transduction with a CMV promoter-driven FLAG-tagged NTCP construct. (b,c) NTCP (b) mRNA and (c) protein levels in HepG2 cells overexpressing NTCP, cultured either in the absence or presence of 2% DMSO for 24 h. (d) Glycosylation kinetic of NTCP in HepG2 cells following induction with 2% DMSO. Tunicamycin (5 µg ml⁻¹) was added to the samples at the indicated time points to block all de novo glycosylation. (e,f) Immunofluorescence microscopy of NTCP following culture in the absence or presence of 2% DMSO for the indicated time frames. Cells were additionally stained with concanavalin A to visualize ER and lectin to visualize Golgi networks. Numbers under western blot lanes indicate densitometric analysis normalized to loading controls. Data shown are mean (s.d.) of three independent experiments.