Fig. 4

Hif-2α promoted malignant characteristics of pancreatic cancer cells. a-b Overexpression of hif-2α enhanced cell viability and proliferation ability of PDAC cells, while hif-2α knockdown decreased the viability and proliferation ability of cells exposed to DFO. c Hif-2α positively regulated secretion of PDAC cell-derived MMP-9 and VEGF. *, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01; ***, P < 0.001, as compared to pcDNA3 or DFO + nc-siRNA. d Hif-2α overexpression increased proliferation of HUVECs. VEGF was used as the positive control. *, P < 0.05, as compared to pcDNA3 or vehicle control. e PANC-1 cells with hif-2α overexpression showed higher activity of aerobic glycolysis but without any change in oxidative phosphorylation (left panel). The cells also had limited glycolysis potential under stress (right panel). ***, P < 0.001, as compared to pcDNA3. f Up-regulation of hif-2α increased the number of CD133⁺ PANC-1 cells. Down-regulation of hif-2α inhibited DFO-induced increase of CD133⁺ cells. g Overexpression of hif-2α up-regulate expression of Oct-4 and Nanog in PANC-1 and BxPC-3 cells