Figure 2
From: Autophagy regulates trophoblast invasion by targeting NF-κB activity
Effects of autophagy inhibition by beclin-1 knockdown on NF-κB activity and MMP-2 and MMP-9 levels in JEG-3 and HTR-8/SVneo cells. (A,B) NF-κB activity upon treatment of beclin-1 shRNA in JEG-3 and HTR-8/SVneo cells. Cells expressing only GFP and beclin-1 shRNA were plated on 24-well plates and transfected with plasmids encoding NF-κB-Luc and pRL-SV40. Luciferase activity was measured using a dual luciferase reporter assay kit. Results are shown as the mean ± SEM of duplicate observations from three different experiments (n = 6, ***p < 0.001). (C,D) Invasion assays were performed with JEG-3 and HTR-8/SVneo cells in the presence of either an NF-κB inhibitor or control peptide. Invasive cells were stained with hematoxylin/eosin and counted under a microscope. Results of the invasion assay are represented in a bar graph generated with data obtained from three different experiments (n = 3, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01) and representative pictures from three different assays are shown in the upper panel. (E,F) MMP-2 and MMP-9 levels were measured by ELISA in the media obtained from JEG-3 and HTR-8/SVneo stable cells upon control and beclin-1 shRNA treatment. Results are shown as the mean ± SEM of triplicate observations from three different experiments (n = 3, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001).
