Fig. 7

Silencing of AKT1 antagonizes the effects of ATF3 knockdown on CRC cells. a, the activation of the AKT pathway in CRC cells treated with MSC-EVs alone or with si-ATF3/miR-222 inhibitor determined by western blot. Full-length blots are presented in Additional file 5 (Supplementary Figure S4); b, AKT1 expression in CRC cells; c, cell proliferation activity after co-transfection in cells assessed by EdU assay; d, tumor volume in xenograft models; e, assessment of tumorigenesis by tumor weight; f, percentage of CD3⁺ cells in tumor tissues detected by immunohistochemistry; g, expression of immune escape-related proteins in tumor tissues examined by western blot. Full-length blots are presented in Additional file 6 (Supplementary Figure S5). Unpaired t test was applied to analyze the differences between two experimental groups (panel f), while two-way ANOVA was utilized to analyze data among multiple groups, along with Tukey’s post hoc test (panel a, b, c, d, e and g)