Fig. 5

The MAL protein interferes with the EMT in GC cells by inhibiting the STAT3 pathway. The CCK-8 results showed that the inhibitor of STAT3 (Stattic, 10 μm) significantly attenuated the proliferation of MGC-803 and HGC-27 cells induced by MAL knockdown (A). Stattic treatment (10 μm) significantly attenuated the increases in the metastasis (B) and invasion (C) of MGC-803 and HGC-27 cells caused by MAL knockdown. RT–qPCR data showed that Stattic attenuated the MAL knockdown-induced increases in the mRNA expression of EMT markers in MGC-803 (D) and HGC-27 € cells. Western blotting showed that Stattic significantly attenuated the increases in EMT-related protein levels in MGC-803 (F) and HGC-27 (H) cells induced by MAL knockdown. Statistical quantification of the four groups of MGC-803 (G) and HGC-27 (I) cells was performed. The experiments were performed at least 3 times independently, and one representative result is shown. The results are presented as the means ± SD. *P < 0.05 and **P < 0.01. B and C, Scale bars = 100 μm