TABLE 3.

Summary of colony formation in soft agar of BEAS-2B cells treated with Nano-SiO₂.

Treatment Group	Cell numbers	Number of Colonies
		BEAS-2B	BEAS-2B-ShRNA-NRF2	BEAS-2B-pEGFP-NRF2
P0	1 × 104	254 ± 14	260 ± 8	246 ± 7
P15	1 × 104	440 ± 14*	844 ± 53*#	324 ± 19*#
P30	1 × 104	996 ± 80*	1476 ± 51*#	705 ± 72*#
P45	1 × 104	1788 ± 69*	1915 ± 35*#	1155 ± 79*#

*p < 0.05, compared with normal cells without Nano-SiO₂ exposure; ^#p < 0.05, compared with normal cells treated with Nano-SiO₂ for the same passages.