Fig. 1

The miR-144/miR-451a cluster correlates with HCC prognosis and polarization of microenvironmental macrophages. a Normal hepatic tissues and HCC were isolated from HCC patients, and miRNA expression was profiled by using miRNA sequencing (n = 7). b Three sets of miRNA expression data were compared, and the common differentially expressed HCC-low and HCC-high miRNAs are presented in a Venn diagram. c The relationship between the expression of candidate miRNAs and HCC patient prognosis was evaluated using the TCGA database (n = 253). d The expression of candidate miRNAs was determined in para-tumor and HCC tissues (n = 125). e The expression of miR-144 and miR-451a was analyzed in HCC with pathological grade I/II (n = 40), grade III (n = 40) and grade IV (n = 45). f HCC patients were grouped according to the levels of miR-144 or miR-451a in tumor tissues and were subjected to survival analysis (n = 125). g-j Luciferase-expressing Hepa1–6 cells were infected with control or miR-144/miR-451a lentiviruses and inoculated intrahepatically into C57BL/6 mice. Tumor development was evaluated by bioluminescence imaging 3 weeks after the injection (n = 6) (g). Tumor tissues were excised and weighed after mice were sacrificed (n = 6) (h). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was performed for tumor-bearing mice in different groups (n = 6) (i). CD31 staining by immunofluorescence was performed to detect tumor angiogenesis (n = 6) (j). Bars, means ± SEMs; *, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01; ***, P < 0.001