Fig. 6: Innate immune response is enhanced in Huh7-GCK⁺/HK2⁻ cells.

a Sector chart from the transcriptomic study showing genes included in the GO-term “Type I-IFN signaling pathway”. b List of genes significantly up-regulated in red or down-regulated in purple (| FC | > 2, BH adjusted p value<0.05) in Huh7-GCK⁺/HK2⁻ compared to Huh7 cells (n = 3). c–e Cells were stimulated or not for 48 h with 3p-hpRNA (RIG-I ligand) or poly(I:C) (IFIH1/MDA5 ligand). ISRE-luciferase expression was monitored and normalized to Renilla luciferase (c, d) (n = 3 for 3p-hpRNA and n = 4 for poly(I:C) treatments). Cell supernatants were assayed for cytokine concentration by multiplex assays (n = 3 to 7) (e). f NK cell mediated lysis of Huh7 or Huh7-GCK⁺/HK2⁻ cells. Hepatoma cells were seeded 24 h before NK cells addition for 4 h at effector to target (E:T) ratio of 0, 3 or 30. After harvesting, cell lysis was determined by the percentage of PI⁺ cells on gated hepatocytes (n = 3). Means ± SEM of indicated n independent experiments are presented and p values were obtained from 2-way ANOVA analyses comparing matched cell means with Sidak’s correction for multiple comparison, with α = 0.05.