Fig. 4: Identification and characterization of circHIPK3 in HCC.

a Schematic representation of the target site in circHIPK3 for miR-124. b Schematic diagram of the head-to-tail splicing of circHIPK3 and Sanger sequencing of a PCR product. c Relative luciferase activities after cotransfection pmirGLO-circHIPK3-WT or pmirGLO-circHIPK3-MUT with miR-124 mimic, respectively. d, e The expression levels of circHIPK3 and HIPK3 mRNA in HCC tissues and adjacent normal tissues (n = 50). f The levels of HIPK3 mRNA were tightly correlated with circHIPK3. g The levels of AQP3 were positively correlated with circHIPK3. Error bars represent mean ± SD from three independent experiments. *p < 0.05