Fig. 1

PTEN is downregulated in HCC and its loss predicts worse prognosis in HCC patients. a and b, Immunocytochemistry staining of PTEN (a) and PI3K (b) proteins in cancerous liver tissues (n = 128) and adjacent noncancerous liver tissues (n = 43) (× 400). *p < 0.05 compared with adjacent noncancerous liver tissues by unpaired t-test. c, Spearman’s correlation analysis of PTEN expression with PI3K expression in HCC tissues (n = 128). d, Kaplan–Meier curves are plotted to show overall survival of 128 HCC patients according to PTEN expression. e, Representative Western blots of PTEN protein in L-02, HepG2, Hep3B, SMMC7721, and HHCC cell lines, normalized to GAPDH. *p < 0.05 compared with L-02 cell lines. f, Verification of HHCC cells with lentiviral transduction of PTEN by Western blot analysis, normalized to GAPDH. HHCC cells were transduced with a lentiviral vector encoding full-length human PTEN (oe-PTEN), with those cells infected with a lentiviral vector harboring empty expression vector as controls (vector-NC). *p < 0.05 compared with vector-NC. Data are shown as mean ± standard deviation of three technical replicates