Fig. 2. Downregulation of miR-17 increases the expression of Smad3.

a Schematic representation of the construction of pMIR firefly luciferase reporter plamid. b Analysis of luciferase activity. HEK-293T cells were co-transfected with pMIR firefly luciferase reporter plasmids, pTK-Renilla luciferase plasmids, together with negative control and miR-17 inhibitor. After 36 h, firefly luciferase activity was measured and normalized by Renilla luciferase activity. c, d Effects of miR-17 inhibitor on the endogenous gene levels were analyzed by qRT-PCR (c) and western blotting (d). The data were subjected to Student’s t-test. Data were shown as mean ± SD (n = 3), **p < 0.01, ns, not significant. NC, negative control