Apoptosis was inhibited by highly-expressed miR-221 or silenced CHD8. (a) Flow cytometry map demonstrating SHEDs apoptosis conditions. (b) Apoptosis rate analysis for SHEDs in response to the treatment of miR-221 mimic, miR-221 inhibitor, si-CHD8, and miR-221 inhibitor + si-CHD8. *, p < 0.05 vs. the mimic-NC group; #, p < 0.05 vs. the inhibitor-NC group; &, p < 0.05 vs. the si-NC group; @, p < 0.05 vs. the miR-221 inhibitor group. Measurement data were expressed as mean ± standard deviation. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was adopted to analyze comparison between multiple groups with Tukey’s post hoc test. The experiment was repeated three times. miR-221, microRNA-221; SHEDs, Stem cells from Human Exfoliated Deciduous teeth; CHD8, Chromodomain-Helicase-DNA-binding protein 8; NC, negative control