Fig. 1

Down-regulated ALKBH5 expression correlates with poor outcomes of HCC patients. a The mRNA expression of ALKBH5 in tumor and normal tissues was measured based on 70 pairs of HCC samples (from cohort one); b Ten pairs of HCC samples (from cohort one) were subject to western blotting analysis of ALKBH5; c Grayscale analysis of ALKBH5 expression in b was conducted (calculated by log2 ratio of “adjacent/tumor pair”, normalized to GAPDH); d IHC scores of matched HCC and normal tissues (n = 90) were computed based on ALKBH5 staining (cohort two); e Representative images of ALKBH5 IHC staining in HCC samples were shown (scale bars, 100 μm; magnification, 100× and 200×); f Kaplan-Meier analysis of overall survival (left) and recurrence-free survival (right) of HCC patients based on ALKBH5 expression (n = 90). Cutoffs for grouping were determined by the median of IHC scores; g Multivariate analysis was employed for HCC patients using COX regression model based on those factors which were statistically significant in univariate analysis. Symbols and bars in forest plots correspond to HR and 95% CIs, respectively. T: tumor; P: para-tumor; HR: hazard rate; CI: confidence interval