Fig. 8

Clinical significance of miR-361-regulated genes in EC progression. (a) The mRNA levels of the indicated miR-361 target genes were higher in EC tissue samples than in normal tissue samples in the TCGA data. (b) The protein expression of STAT3, VEGF-A, MEF2D, ROCK1, KPNA4, and PDE4D was measured in EC tissue (c) and adjacent normal tissue (N). Images were downloaded from the Human Protein Atlas online database. (c) Kaplan-Meier overall survival analysis was used to assess EC patients with high or low MEF2D, ROCK1, WNT7A or KPNA4 expression based on the TCGA data from the KM Plotter. (d) The proposed mechanisms by which the lncRNA NEAT1 promotes aggressive EC progression via miR-361-mediated gene networks involving STAT3 signaling, prometastatic genes (MEF2D, ROCK1 and WNT7A) and tumor microenvironment-related genes (VEGF-A, PDE4B and KPNA4) are shown schematically. *P < 0.05