Fig. 4

miR-500a-3p promotes stem cell properties in hepatocellular carcinoma cells. a Representative images of spheres formed at 200-fold magnification were counted. Histograms show the mean number of spheres formed. b Hoechst 33,342 dye exclusion assay showed that overexpressing miR-500a-3p promoted the fraction of side population, whereas silencing miR-500a-3p decreased the fraction. c and d Real-time PCR analysis of OCT4A, SOX2, NANOG and BMI-1 expression. GAPDH was used as the loading control. Error bars represent the mean ± SD of three independent experiments. Error bars represent the mean ± S.D. of three independent experiments. *P < 0.05