Fig. 7

Silencing MCT1 and NDRG3 in LX2 or THP1 reduced malignancy and stemness features of co-cultured HCC cells. a The schematic diagram of examining malignancy features of HCC cells under a co-culture condition. b For wound healing assay, scratches were generated in a confluent monolayer HLF cells infected with pmiR-ctrl/RFP or pmiR-192/RFP which were co-cultured with LX2 or THP1 pre-transfected with si-NDRG3 or si-MCT1. c HLF-192KO infected with pmiR-ctrl/GFP or pmiR-192/GFP were used for spheroid formation assay. Conditioned medium was used for this assay and collected from corresponding HLF cells co-cultured with LX2 pre-transfected with si-NDRG3 or si-MCT1. d Quantitative data of flow cytometry analysis of CD24⁺ and CD44⁺ populations in HLF-192KO cells or HLF-192KO infected with pmiR-192/GFP cells co-cultured with LX2 pre-transfected with si-NDRG3 or si-MCT1. e Relative levels of MCT1 and NDRG3 in non-tumor samples from patients with different levels of miR-192-5p in their tumors. f Kaplan–Meier curves of overall survival and time to recurrence in Cohort 1 according to miR-192-5p level in tumors as well as MCT1 or NDRG3 levels in non-tumors. g The schematic model of the miR-192-5p regulatory pathway in glycolysis and hepatic CSC features. Student t-test was used for (c, d and e). *, p < 0.05