Fig. 2: miR-18a and miR-19a cooperate to drive GC cell metastasis viaWnt/β-catenin signalling pathways.

a At 48 hours after transfection, the expression levels of miR-18a and miR-19a in the MKN45 and AGS cell lines were examined by qRT-PCR. U6 snRNA served as the internal control. b Wound-healing assay and c migration assay of MKN45 and AGS cells treated with an NC mimic, a miR-18a mimic, a miR-19a mimic and a mimic mixture. d Western blot analysis of β-catenin, C-Myc and Axin2 in MKN45 and AGS cells treated with an NC mimic and a miR-18a/19a mimic mixture. e The mRNA and protein levels of SMAD2 in cells treated with miR-18a mimic, miR-19a mimic and NC mimic were examined. f Predicted miR-18a and miR-19a-binding sites in the 3’ UTRs of human SMAD2. g, h Dual luciferase assays of SMAD2 that were predicted to be regulated by miR-18a or miR-19a. All the above experiments were independently performed in triplicate (N = 3). The data a, b, c, e, g and h represent the means ± SDs. *P < 0.05, as demonstrated by paired Student’s t test