Figure 3

The effect of galectin-3 knockdown in the viability of HCC cells. (A) Western blot analysis showing expression of galectin-3 in galectin-3-transfected cells. Expression of GAPDH was used as a loading control. (B) The MTS assay showed that silence of galectin-3 inhibited the proliferation of HepG2, Bel-7402, Hep3B and Huh7 cells (*P?<?0.05, independent Student’s t-test). (C) Rate of cell growth between galectin-3-overexpresion and negative vector -transfected cells by MTT assay. Galectin-3 promoted cell proliferation in Hep3B cells (*P?<?0.05, independent Student’s t-test). (D) The effect of galectin-3 on cell cycle in HCC cells. The cells were transfected with gal-siRNA or negative control as in D. After 36 hours, the cells were collected for cell cycle distribution analysis. DNA content of gal-siRNA or negative control-transfected cells were detected by flow cytometry. Knockdown of galectin-3 expression did not significantly change the G1, S, or G2 level of HCC cells. Experiments were performed in triplicate times. (E) Overexpression of galectin-3 did not significantly change the G1, S, or G2 level of Hep3B cells. Experiments were performed in triplicate times.