Fig. 3.

VCP expression promotes migration and invasion in HCC in vitro. A, B the expression of VCP was silenced in Huh7 cells treated with siRNAs and exogenously overexpressed in MHCC-LM3 cells. Wound-healing assay demonstrated cell movement capacity. C, D The transwell system was utilized to detect the migration and invasion abilities of HCC cells. The representative images and the corresponding statistical results were shown. E–G The protein expression of EMT-related markers was determined by western blot and the relative protein density was analyzed. H The GSEA analysis in the HCC cohort from TCGA database based on the VCP transcriptional expression showed the up-regulated PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway. The median value of VCP transcriptional level was regarded as the cut-off to divide HCC patients into high- or low-VCP expression groups. I–K Proteins extracted from Huh7 and MHCC-LM3 cells in various groups were subjected to western blot to detect the markers within the mTOR pathway. Meanwhile, the relative protein gray density was summarized. EMT epithelial-mesenchymal transition, GSEA gene set enrichment analysis, FDR false discovery rate, NES normalized enrichment score, EMT epithelial-mesenchymal transformation, ns no significance. All *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, ****P < 0.0001