Fig. 1: Knockdown of lumican increased metastatic capability.

a Overexpression of lumican in lung cancer cells. The cell lysates for indicated cells or cell lines were subjected to western blotting for the detection of lumican expressions. b1 & b2 Downregulation of lumican with siRNAs or shRNA-specific targeting lumican. B1 A549 and H460 cells were transfected with lumican siRNAs that contained three siRNAs targeting lumican for 24 h and the transfected cells were subjected to western blotting with indicated antibodies. B2 Stable clones for lumican-shRNA-transfected cells. A549 and H460 cells were transfected with lumican shRNA for 24 h and the transfected cells were then selected with puromycin for 4 days. The stable clones were termed as A549LD and H460LD cells. The level of lumican was detected by western blotting. c Downregulation of lumican accelerated the cell migration (right panel) and invasion (left panel) capability. A549/A549LD and H460/H460LD cells were seeded in Boyden chambers with or without matrix-gel coating to detect the cell invasion or cell migration. The migrated or invasive cells were counted in five random fields after staining of the cells with crystal violet. The data were expressed as the mean ± SD of three independent experiments. Significantly different from control (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01,***p<0.001).