Fig. 2

HOXD-AS1 is regulated by the transcription factor STAT3. a mRNA expression level of STAT3 in 68 paired samples of HCC tissues. b Expression correlation analysis between HOXD-AS1 (x) and STAT3 (y) in 68 HCC tissues (R = 0.4743, p < 0.0001). c Expression levels of HOXD-AS1 in Hep3B and Huh7 cells after knockdown of STAT3. d Left: schematic representation of constructs for HOXD-AS1 promoter reporter. Right: luciferase activities of 6 truncated constructs in HEK-293 T cells. e Luciferase activities of -1158 bp ~ -746 bp or -2000 bp ~ -1159 bp fragments after knockdown of STAT3. f ChIP assay in HCC cells, followed by quantitative PCR amplification of binding site 2 within HOXD-AS1 promoter region. Genomic DNA input was 1%. Data in (a-e) are the means ± SD. **p < 0.01, and ***p < 0.001