Figure 3: Baseline expression of miR-153 in ALCs and LS8 cells and MiR-153 induced changes in miRNA and mRNA expression by real-time PCR.

(a) In both ALCs and LS8 cells, the expression of miR-153 was not detected by real-time PCR. MiR-31, miR-21, miR-135a, miR-138, miR-203 and miR-346 showed statistically significant differential expression between the two ameloblast-like cell models. The expression levels of miR-31, miR-21 and miR138 cannot be fully appreciated in the figure and the values are as follows: miR-31 in LS8 1.11 ± 0.0096, miR-21 in ALC 8.47 ± 0.94, miR-21 in LS8 1.35 ± 0.21, miR-138 in ALC 0.015 ± 0.0014. (b) MiRNA expression changes in ALCs. (c) MiRNA expression changes in LS8 cells. In miR-153 transfected ALCs compared with negative control siRNA transfected ALCs, the expression of miR-3085 and miR-346 was upregulated, while the expression of miR-298, miR-135a, miR-376b and miR-203 was downregulated. In LS8 cells, intracellular overloading of miR-153 induced similar changes in the expression of miR-3085, miR-298, miR-135a and miR-376b as those in ALCs. There were statistically significant differences in the expression of miR-138 and miR-346 in LS8 cells transfected by miR-153 and by negative control siRNA. (d) Gene expression changes in ALCs. (e) Gene expression changes in LS8 cells. Clcn4, Lamp1, Cltc and Slc4a4 exhibited significantly decreased expression in ALCs and LS8 cells transfected by miR-153. In ALCs, the expression of Stam was downregulated in miR-153 transfection group compared with mock transfection group. Rab11fip2 in miR-153 transfected LS8 cells showed increased expression. The expression of the remaining gene targets did not show any changes in response to miR-153 transfection in either cell model. The expression of Lamp5 was barely detected in both cells models. *P < 0.05.