Fig. 3

Identification of the effect of autophagy on the apoptin-induced apoptosis of liver cancer cells. Analysis of changes in LC3 fluorescence in HepG-2 (A) and Huh-7 (D) cells using the LC3-GFP plasmid. After LTR staining in HepG-2 (B) and Huh-7 (E) cells, the changes in lysosomal fluorescence intensity were observed by fluorescence microscopy. Western blot assay analyzes autophagy and apoptosis-related protein expression levels in HepG-2 (C) and Huh-7 (F) cells. G The expression of cleaved LC3 in the xenograft tumor tissues, was detected by IHC. H After the addition of the autophagy inhibitor 3-MA (2 mM) to the cells infected with Ad-apoptin, the inhibition rates of HepG-2 and Huh-7 cells were detected by the CCK-8 assay. The scale bar equals 50 µm. Data were representative of three independent experiments (n = 3). The unpaired Student’s t-test was used. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. (^#p < 0.05, ^##p < 0.01) when compared with Ad-apoptin