Fig. 4

Effect of AFAP1-AS1 knockdown on molecular expression of OS cells and AFAP1-AS1 knockdown-inhibited EMT is mediated via RhoC/ROCK1/p38MAPK//Twsit1 signaling pathway. a AFAP1-AS1 knockdown in OS cells led to significantly decreased expression of mesenchymal markers (N-cadherin and Vimentin) and increased expression of epithelial marker E-cadherin. b In the AFAP1-AS1 knockdown group, the expression of RhoC, ROCK1, p-p38MAPK and Twsit1 was decreased compared to the scrambled group. c RIP assay demonstrated that AFAP1-AS1 interacted with RhoC in OS cells. d, e and f Overexpression of RhoC in AFAP1-AS1 knockdown OS cells could rescue AFAP1-AS1 downregulation-induced inhibition of cell migration, invasion, EMT, and the expression level of ROCK1, phosphorylated p38MAPK and Twist1 were rescued. g and h Both downregulating AFAP1-AS1 and RhoC, the expression of Twist and EMT of OS cells were inhibited further. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001