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. 2022 Jan 24;2022:8316335. doi: 10.1155/2022/8316335

Figure 2.

Figure 2

Nicotine induces Huh7 and HepG2 HCC cell migratory, invasive, self-renewal, and EMT properties in vitro. (a, b) Wound healing and Transwell assay, respectively, measured cell migration and invasion, at the concentration of 0.5 μM nicotine for 24 h stimulate both the HCC (Huh7 and HepG2) cells; bar plot indicates the percentage speed of wound healing and invasion between the nicotine and control treatment group. Scale bar 50 μm. (c, d) Nicotine induces self-renewal, i.e., colony-forming and tumor-sphere properties of HCC cells. Scale bar 100 μm. (e) Protein expression by Western blotting in HCC cells treated with nicotine. Nicotine treatment (0.5 μM) efficiently induced the expression of p-JAK2, EMT marker (induced vimentin), and self-renewal (CD133) markers. GAPDH served as the loading control. The bar represents the mean ± SD values of three independent experiments; ∗p < 0.05 versus controls (Student's t-test).