Fig. 3

HDGF is a direct target gene of miR-129-5p. A Represented are predicted binding sites of miR-129-5p in the 3′UTR of HDGF. Binding sites were predicted by TargetScan [29] and IntaRNA [30]. The seed region of miR-129-5p is highlighted in gray. B Firefly luciferase activity was measured and normalized to renilla luciferase activity. ***p < 0.001; one-way ANOVA with Dunnett’s multiple comparisons test. C HDGF expression was analyzed 24 h, 48 h, and 72 h after transfection of HCC cell lines with 50 nM miR-129-5p mimics by qRT-PCR using the ΔΔCT method. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001; two-tailed Student’s t test. D HDGF protein expression was analyzed 48 h after miR-129-5p transfection by western blotting with cofilin as loading control. Densitometric analysis of western blot assays is shown in Additional file 1: Fig. S9B