Figure 8

Knockdown of Gli1 inhibited estrogen-induced EMT in MCF-7 cells. (A) Estrogen induced morphological change from an epithelial to a fibroblast-like appearance in shVEC-transfected MCF-7 cells. Gli1-knockdown cells (shGli1-1 and shGli1-2) still maintained their epithelial morphologies seven days after treatment with E2. Scale bar,200 μm. ShVEC, shGli1-1 and shGli1-2-transfected MCF-7 cells were cultured in medium with 1% FBS in the presence ETOH or E2 for seven days. (B) Real-time qRT-PCR was used to determine the expression levels of E-cadherin and vimentin mRNAs. Bars represent the means ± SEs of three experiments (**, ##: P < 0.01). (C) Western blotting was used to determine the effects of shGli1 on the expression level of E-cadherin and vimentin proteins. β-Actin was used as a loading control.