Activation of AKT is necessary to miR-K3-induced endothelial cell migration and invasion.

<p><b>(A)</b>. Transwell migration (<b>Left panel</b>) and Matrigel invasion (<b>Right panel</b>) assays for HUVEC which were transduced with lentivirus-mediated empty vector (<b>mpCDH</b>) or miR-K3 (<b>miR-K3</b>) expression and further with lentivirus-AKT-DN (<b>AKT-DN</b>) or its control (<b>pCDH</b>). * <i>P</i> < 0.05, ** <i>P</i> < 0.01 and *** <i>P</i> < 0.001 for Student’s <i>t</i>-test. <b>(B)</b>. Western blotting analysis of phosphorylated AKT in HUVEC treated as in (<b>A</b>). The antibody against HA-tag was used to detect the transduction of AKT-DN. <b>(C)</b>. Transwell migration (<b>Left panel</b>) and Matrigel invasion (<b>Right panel</b>) assays for KSHV-infected HUVEC transduced with lentivirus-mediated a mixture of short hairpin RNAs targeting AKT (<b>shAKT</b>) or its control (<b>pCDH</b>). * <i>P</i> < 0.05 and *** <i>P</i> < 0.001 for Student’s <i>t</i>-test. <b>(D)</b>. Western blotting analysis of phosphorylated AKT levels in HUVEC treated as in (<b>C</b>). <b>(E)</b>. The mRNA expression of MMP1, 9, 10 and IL-6, 8 in HUVEC, which were transduced with lentivirus-mediated empty vector (<b>mpCDH</b>) or miR-K3 (<b>miR-K3</b>) expression and further treated with the AKT inhibitor, MK-2206 (<b>MK-2206</b>) or its control (<b>DMSO</b>), were determined by qPCR. * <i>P</i> < 0.05, ** <i>P</i> < 0.01 and *** <i>P</i> < 0.001 for Student’s <i>t</i>-test. <b>(F)</b>. The mRNA expression of MMP1, 9, 10 and IL-6, 8 in KSHV-infected HUVEC treated with the AKT inhibitor, MK-2206 (<b>MK-2206</b>) or its control (<b>DMSO</b>) were determined by qPCR. * <i>P</i> < 0.05, ** <i>P</i> < 0.01 and *** <i>P</i> < 0.001 for Student’s <i>t</i>-test.