E-cadherin plays a pivotal role in miR-BART9-mediated migration and invasion in NPC cells.

<p>(A) Protein level of E-cadherin was increased after introducing pcDNA6/His-CDH1, which contains CDH1 open reading frame without 3′-UTR. Transwell migration assay (B) and Matrigel invasion assay (C) for miR-BART9- or LacZ-expressing BM1 cells with or without ectopic expression of E-cadherin. (D) HK1-EBV cells were transfected with 10 nM siRNA negative control (si-Neg) or CDH1 siRNA (si-CDH1). Expression of E-cadherin was examined by Western blotting. GAPDH was used as a loading control. (E) Transwell migration assay (Upper) and Matrigel invasion assay (Middle) of HK1-EBV cells treated with an LNA-modified miR-BART9 antisense oligo (anti-BART9), scramble control (anti-Ctrl), or anti-BART9 plus E-cadherin siRNA (si-CHD1). Images of cells adhered to the lower surface of the filter insert from a representative experiment are shown. The numbers of migratory or invasive cells were quantified using image J and are expressed as the fold change relative to the appropriate cell line (bar graphs). The data are expressed as the means ± SEM from three independent experiments and two-tailed Student's t-tests were performed (*, P<0.05; ***, P<0.001). Scale bar = 200 µm.