Fig. 4

CITED4 is related to apoptosis and functions through BIRC2. A Proteome profiling of apoptosis-associated proteins. Array images showing cleaved Caspase-3 and BIRC2 expression in CITED4-knockdown L3.6pl-GR cells. B Apoptosis-related gene expression in CITED4-knockdown PANC-1 (left) and L3.6pl-GR (right) cells. C mRNA (top) and protein (bottom) expression levels of CITED4 in CITED4-knockdown PANC-1 and L3.6pl-GR cells. D Schematic representation of the BIRC2 promoter region. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-qPCR was used to amplify chromatin derived from immunoprecipitation with CITED4 antibody, as indicated. E Luciferase reporter assay of BIRC2 promoter activity and schematic representation of the truncated promoter plasmid (upper panel). Relative luciferase activity was determined using the ratio of firefly luciferase/Renilla luciferase activity (bottom panel). F CITED4 and BIRC2 expression levels in normal pancreatic tissues and PC tumor tissues. G Correlation analysis of between CITED4 and BIRC2 expression levels using tissue samples. H Correlation analysis of between CITED4 and BIRC2 expression levels from PAAD-TCGA using GEPIA2 (R = 0.21, P < 0.0001). I Heat map of the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in BIRC2-knockdown PANC-1 and L3.6pl-GR. Representative genes are shown on the right. J The Database for Annotation, Visualization, and Integrated Discovery (DAVID) tool was used to perform KEGG pathway analysis for DEGs. K The expression of CITED4, BIRC2, phosphorylated p38 MAPK (p-p38), total p38 MAPK (p38), phosphorylated JNK (p-JNK), and total JNK in BIRC2 knockdown PACN-1 and L3.6pl-GR cells. GAPDH were used as an internal control for protein expression. **P < 0.01 and ***P < 0.001