Research Paper Volume 12, Issue 7 pp 6129—6150
Inhibiting Forkhead box K1 induces autophagy to reverse epithelial-mesenchymal transition and metastasis in gastric cancer by regulating Myc-associated zinc finger protein in an acidic microenvironment
Figure 7. Dual inhibition of mTOR and FOXK1 enhances autophagy and leads to the synergistic transfer of acidic GC cells. (A–G) Acidic MGC803 cells were treated with DMSO or rapamycin (100 nM) or infected with ctrl, shFOXK1-1, shFOXK1-2 or a combination of these for 24 h. (A) The red-only and yellow puncta of MGC803 cells transfected with mRFP-GFP-LC3 were observed under laser confocal conditions, and the quantitative results are shown in (B). Scale bar, 10 μm. (C) Western blotting was performed to assess the expression intensity of LC3-I, LC3-II, P62, E-cadherin, N-cadherin, Vimentin and MMP9. (D–F) The migration and invasive capabilities of MGC803 cells were examined. The invading cells are quantified in (D, E). The data are presented as the means ± S.D.s from three independent experiments. * P < 0.05, *** P < 0.001 and **** P < 0.0001.