Fig. 4

Intracellular translocation of Rictor during hepatocarcinogenesis. A–D Immunohistochemical (IHC) staining and corresponding quantitative analysis of Rictor in (A, B) three representative rat liver cirrhosis (LC) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues, as well as (C, D) three representative human HCCs and their background liver (BL) tissues. Magnified regions of (A) and (C) are highlighted by dashed boxes. Cytoplasmic-nuclear distributional disparities of Rictor are represented by relative ratios of nuclear H-score to cytoplasmic H-score in (B) rat LC (n = 6) and HCC (n = 5) tissues, and in (D) human BL (n = 6) and HCCs (n = 6) tissues. E Western blotting demonstrated cytoplasmic and nuclear Rictor expression in 10 pairs of fresh human HCCs (T: tumor) and their BL tissues (B: background). F Quantification of the blot in (E) by densitometric analysis. Ratios of cytoplasmic to nuclear Rictor expression in each BL were normalized to 1 (n = 10). Relative ratios of cytoplasmic to nuclear Rictor expression in the HCCs vs. BL tissues were calculated. IHC staining: magnification × 400. *P < 0.05