Figure 3.

MEG3 acts as a sponge of miR-145. (A) Predicted miR-145 binding sites on MEG3. (B) miR-145 expression levels in serum from healthy patients and patients with mild and severe fibrosis were detected by RT-qPCR. (C) miR-145 expression levels in LX-2 cells following TGF-β1 treatment were detected by RT-qPCR. (D) Dual-luciferase reporter assays were performed to verify the relationship between miR-145 and MEG3. (E) Verification of MEG3 knock down following shMEG3 transfection. (F) Following transfection with pcMEG3 or shMEG3, miR-145 expression levels in LX-2 cells was detected by RT-qPCR. **P<0.01; ^#P<0.05, ^##P<0.01. MEG3, maternally expressed gene 3; miR, microRNA; MUT, mutant; NC, negative control; pc, plasmid cloning DNA3.1 overexpression vector; RT-qPCR, reverse transcription-quantitative PCR; sh, short hairpin RNA; WT, wild-type.