Fig. 2

CircBFAR promotes the proliferation, migration, and invasion of PDAC cells in vitro. a qRT-PCR analysis for the expression of circBFAR in pancreatic epithelial cells (hTERT-HPNE) and PDAC cells (BxPC-3, MIA PaCa-2, CFPAC-1, and PANC-1). b, c The expression of circBFAR and BFAR mRNA was assessed by qRT-PCR in PANC-1 cells treated with an siRNA (b) and BxPC-3 cells transfected with the circBFAR plasmid (c) and control cells, as indicated. d, e EdU assays showing that knockdown of circBFAR inhibited the DNA synthesis of PANC-1 cells (d), while overexpression of circBFAR promoted DNA synthesis in BxPC-3 cells (e). The images were photographed at 100X magnification. Scale bar = 100 μm. f, g Colony formation assays to evaluate the cell proliferation ability after knocking down circBFAR in PANC-1 cells (f) and overexpressing circBFAR in BxPC-3 cells (g). h, i The migration capability of circBFAR was suppressed in PANC-1 cells treated with si-circBFAR#1 and si-circBFAR#2 (h), while migration was promoted in BxPC-3 cells transfected with the circBFAR plasmid, as determined using a wound healing assay (i). The images were photographed at 40X magnification. Scale bar = 200 μm. j, k The cell migration and invasion ability were measured using Transwell migration and Matrigel invasion assays after knocking down circBFAR in PANC-1 cells (j) and overexpression circBFAR in BxPC-3 cells (k). The images were photographed at 100X magnification. Scale bar = 100 μm. Statistical significance was assessed using two-tailed t-tests for two group comparison, and one-way ANOVA followed by Dunnett’s tests for multiple comparison. The error bars represent the standard deviations of three independent experiments. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01