Fig. 4

Association of miR-21 levels with STAT3 downstream targets. a & b. Representative immunoblots showing expression of MMP-2, MMP-9, PTEN and TIMP-3 in indicated cervical cancer cell lines (a, e) and cervical tissue biopsies (b, f). Total cellular proteins (50 μg/lane) isolated from cervical cancer cell lines and tissues immunoblotted for MMP-2, MMP-9, PTEN and TIMP-3 expression, blots were subsequently stripped and reprobed with β-actin which was used as input control. Normalized fold difference in expression of the bands in each tissue type was determined by densitometry as described in Methods in 3 independent experiments. c, d, g & h. Distribution of miR-21 levels (Mean ± SE) in cervical tissues from pre-cancer and cancer lesions with corresponding MMP-2, MMP-9, PTEN and TIMP-3 protein levels. Relative normalized protein levels were broadly classified into low or high groups based on median fold difference in respective protein levels in each disease group w.r.t. normal pooled control sample. MMP-2 protein level median values were LSIL – 1.02; HSIL – 1.4; Cancer – 1.56. MMP-9 protein level median values were LSIL – 0.98; HSIL – 1.15; Cancer – 1.44. PTEN protein level median values were LSIL – 1.62; HSIL – 1.17; Cancer – 0.67. TIMP-3 protein level median values were LSIL – 1.18; HSIL – 1.02; Cancer – 0.9. *p value <0.05; ***p value <0.001