Figure 3.

SOX4 activates the transcription of AKR1B10P1 in Hep3B cells. A. Evaluation and prediction was conducted through the Database of Human Transcription Factor Targets and Gene-Cloud of Biotechnology Information. As the result demonstrated, SOX4 is a transcription factor potentially binds to the promoter region of AKR1B10P1 gene (5’-GCAAACAAAGCC-3’, Chr. 10: 67749768-67749779). B. According to the result mining from TCGA liver cancer database, SOX4 shows a remarkable high expression in HCC tissues (P < 0.01). C. RT-qPCR assay was conducted to investigate the SOX4 expression in HCC cell lines. SOX4 was significantly highly expressed in HCC cell lines (**P < 0.01). D. Scatter plot was generated for presenting the relationship between SOX4 and AKR1B10P1 transcript. Expression of SOX4 mRNA was positively related with AKR1B10P1 transcript (Spearman R=0.4522, P < 0.0001). E. RT-qPCR assay was carried out for investigating the effect of knock-down on AKR1B10P1 transcription. Knock-down of SOX4 in Hep3B cells induced significant decrease of AKR1B10P1 transcript (**P < 0.01). F. ChIP assay was applied to investigate the interaction between SOX4 and the promoter region of AKR1B10P1 gene. IgG was used as the negative control. As the column chart, transcription factor SOX4 was confirmed binding to the specific sequence of the promoter region from SOX4 (**P < 0.01).