Fig. 5
IL-8 enhances lactate production of HCC cells. A. IL-8 concentration in the culture medium of IL-8 KD and control Huh-7 cells; determination after 24 h of culture. B. Quantification of Huh-7 lactate production in the IL-8 KD and control groups; determination after 24 h of culture. C. Quantification of Huh-7 lactate production in the IL-8 KD and control groups; the protein concentration was used to standardize lactate production; determination after 24 h of culture. D. Quantification of HCCLM3 (2 × 105 cells/cm2) lactate production in the IL-8 OE and control groups; the protein concentration was used to standardize lactate production; determination after 24 h of culture. E. Expression of lactate in HCC samples in low IL-8 group (n = 7) and high IL-8 group (n = 8); IL-8 expression data obtained from IHC quantified by Image J. F. Comparison of lactate expression between < 5000 cells/mm2 (n = 6), 5000–6000 cells/mm2 (n = 4) and ≥ 6000cells/mm2 (n = 5) in HCC samples. G. Spearman correlation scatter plot of IL-8 and four key enzymes mRNA expression in HCC; Analysis using TCGA database. H. mRNA expression of PFKFB3, HIF1A, PKM2, and HK2 in IL-8 KD and control Huh-7 cells of different cell densities. I. The protein expression of PFKFB3, HIF1A, PKM2, and HK2 in IL-8 KD and control Huh-7 cells; the protein expression of PFKFB3 in Huh-7 cells with different cell densities. J. The protein expression of PFKFB3, HIF1A, PKM2, and HK2 in IL-8 OE and control HCCLM3 cells. The data represent the mean ± S.D. of three independent experiments. Mann–Whitney U test or t–tests were used to compare the means of two groups. ANOVA were used for comparison among three groups. *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.001. Abbreviations: KD, knockdown; OE, overexpression