Figure 2.

Down-regulation of MKLN1-AS inhibits migration, invasion, and proliferation of HCC cells.

(a) Nuclear/cytoplasmic fractionation combined with qPCR and FISH assay revealed the distribution of MKLN1‑AS in HuH-7 cells. (b) Expression of MKLN1-AS in HCC cell lines was determined using qPCR (Data are normalized to Hep3B cells). (c) Down-regulation efficacy of MKLN1-AS in two HCC cell lines. Effectiveness was evaluated by performing qPCR. (d) Clone formation assay was conducted to assess the clone formation abilities of the control and MKLN1-AS knockdown HCC cells. (e) The proliferation ability of SK-Hep-1 and HuH-7 was determined by the CCK-8 assay. (f) The typical images of the wounding-healing assay for the control and MKLN1-AS knockdown SK-Hep-1 and HuH-7 cells. After 0 h, 24 h, and 48 h, the wound-healing area was measured in three randomly selected fields at 100×, magnification. (g) The representative pictures of transwell assay for the control and MKLN1-AS knockdown SK-Hep-1 and HuH-7 cells. The cells were counted under the microscope in five randomly selected fields at 100× magnification. Data are presented as mean ± SD (n = 3, * = p < 0.05; ** = p < 0.01, *** = p < 0.001)