Fig. 3

MiR-1468 promotes tumor growth and inhibits apoptosis in vivo. a Representative pictures of HCC xenografts from both Hep3B-miR-1468 (left panel) and MHCC-97 L-anti-miR-1468 cells (right panel). Tumor growth curve revealed that miR-1468 overexpression significantly promoted, while miR-1468 knockdown inhibited tumor growth in vivo. Tumor nodules were subjected to immunohistochemical staining for Ki-67 (b) and TUNEL (c) assays and quantitative analysis. Representative immunostaining and TUNEL assays revealed that miR-1468 overexpression significantly increased the number of Ki-67 positive cells and inhibited the number of apoptotic cells. However, the percentage of Ki-67 positive cells in tumors arising from the miR-1468 knockdown group was significantly lower and the percentage of apoptotic cells was significantly higher than that in the negative control (NC) group. *P < 0.05