Fig. 2

Upregulation of eIF6 is correlated with HCC progression and poor prognosis. a, b The expression levels of eIF6 protein were detected by western blot in 6 pairs of fresh surgically resected human HCC tissues. β-actin was used as an internal control. The density of eIF6/β-actin was calculated as the relative expression levels of eIF6 protein. T, HCC tissues; N, paired adjacent normal liver tissues. c Western blot analysis of eIF6 protein levels in 7 HCC cell lines. The data indicate the means ± SD (n = 3). d HE staining and IHC staining of eIF6 antibody in normal liver tissues and HCC tissues. Low expression and high expression images for eIF6 were shown above. Bar = 50 μm. e The distribution of scores showed that eIF6 was more highly expressed in HCC (n = 68) tissues than in normal liver tissues (n = 45). f The expression levels of eIF6 had a positive correlation with tumor size. g Higher levels of eIF6 in HCC patients were more likely to cause vascular invasion. h Kaplan–Meier analysis of OS based on TCGA database in all 371 patients. Patients with high eIF6 expression (n = 185) had a more dismal OS than patients with low eIF6 expression (n = 186) in HCC. Color images are available online. The error bar represents the mean ± SD (n = 3). OS, overall survival. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; and ***p < 0.001