Fig. 2

hsa-miR-124-3p targets to 3′-UTR region of BCAT1 mRNA. a Bioinformatic analysis shows that hsa-miR-124-3p binds to position 671–677 (WT1) and position 7685–7691 (WT2) of BCAT1 of BCAT1 3′-UTR region through base complementary pairing. MUT1 refers to the mutant sequence of WT1 and MUT2 is the mutant sequence of WT2. b The combination of hsa-miR-124-3p and BCAT1 was confirmed by a dual-luciferase reporter assay. KYSE-150 or Eca109 cells were co-transfected with psi-CHECK2-BCAT1–3′-UTR (WT1/2 or MUT1/2) and miR-124-3p mimics (or NC mimics). The luciferase activity was calculated as the ratio of renilla luciferase activity to firefly luciferase after 48 h. The experiments were performed in triplicate and each value represents mean ± SD. ***p < 0.001