Fig. 7

UTP11 may mediate tumor stem cells in HCC by stabilizing the mRNA of OCT4. (A) The correlation between UTP11 expression and tumor stemness scores from TCGA database. (B) Heat map showed the correlation between UTP11 expression and stemness-associated proteins (Oct4, Nanog, Sox2, CD24, CD44, CD133, EPCAM) from TCGA database. (C) The association between UTP11 and Oct4 expression from TCGA database. (D, E) The mRNA levels of stem cell-related genes, including Oct4, Nanog, Sox2, and CD133, were detected in control or UTP11 knockdown of HepG2 and Huh7 cells by qPR-PCR assay. (F) The change in Oct4 expression in the absence of UTP11 was detected at the protein level by western blot assay in HepG2 and Huh7 cells. (G, H) The control or UTP11 knockdown of HepG2 and Huh7 cells was treated with 5 µg/ml of Actinomycin D, followed by testing the mRNA expression of Oct4 using qRT-PCR assay. (I) HepG2 and Huh7 cells with or without UTP11 were subjected to sphere formation analysis. * P < 0.05; ** P < 0.01; *** P < 0.001; **** P < 0.0001