Acquisition of microarray data
The HCC and control tissue microarray data was download from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/) database, which was submitted by Morita K (Series Accession: GSE41874, ID:200041874).
Patient samples
Control and tumour tissues were obtained after biopsy in the pathology department of Xiangyang No.1 People's Hospital (Xiangyang, China). All the tissues were from male patients (39 to 60 years old). This work was reviewed and acquired the approval of the Ethics Committee of Xiangyang No.1 People's Hospital(XYYYE20230121), and all the patients had written informed consent.
Cell culture and miRNA transfection
The HepG2, HuH7 and 293T cell lines were purchased from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC; Manassas, VA, USA). The normal human hepatocyte L02 cell line was purchased from the China Center for Type Culture Collection (Shanghai, China). Cells were cultured in DMEM (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, USA) with 10% FBS (Invitrogen) under 5% CO2 at 37°C.
The miR199a mimic and negative control were synthesized by RiboBio (Guangzhou, China). miR199a-mimics (mimics): 5’-ACAGTAGTCTGCACATTGGTTA-3’, and the negative control mimics (NC-mimics) sequence was 5’-GTGTTTGATGACCCGTTTA-3’. Cells (5 × 105 cells per well) were seeded in a 6 well plate. When the cells were at 85% confluence, the mimics or NC-mimics were transfected into cells at a final concentration 50 nM using Lipofectamine™ 2000 Transfection Reagent (cat.no.11668019, Invitrogen, Carlsbad, USA). Briefly, dilute 2 amounts of Lipofectamine™ Stem Reagent and miRNA mimics in Opti-MEM™ I Medium, respectively. Next, mixed the diluted miRNA mimics and diluted Lipofectamine™ Stem Reagent (1:1 ratio), incubated for 20 min at room temperature. Lastly, add miRNA mimics-lipid complex to cells.
miRNA target prediction
The miR199a directly targeting genes were predicted on the bioinformatics prediction websites TargetscanHuman 7.1 (http://www.targetscan.org/), and the whole predicted targets data was downloaded for analysing.
Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) assay
HepG2, HuH7 cells were seeded in 96 well plates (~ 2000 cells per well) with 100 µl culture medium for 0 h, 24 h, 48 h and 72 h, respectively, after which CCK-8 (Dojindo, Japan) was added to wells (10 ul per well) and incubated (37 ℃, 2 h), then, we recorded the absorbance of each well at 450 nm and analysed the relative cell number to assess cell proliferation.
5-Ethynyl-2'-deoxyuridine (EdU) incorporation assay
HepG2 and HuH7 cells were transfected with mimics or NC-mimics for 24 h in 96 well plates, amd the cell proliferation was tested by Cell-Light EdU Apollo567 In Vitro Kit (cat.no.C10310-1, RiboBio, Guangzhou, China) according to the manufacturer’s protocol1. Briefly, post miRNA mimics transfected 24 h, cells were incubated with 50µM EdU for 2 h at 37℃ and fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde for 30 min at room temperature. Next, incubated with 2 mg/mL glycine for 5 min, after that, cells were incubating 0.5% TritonX-100 for 10 min. Thirdly, cells were incubated with 1X Apollo® for 30 min avoid light at room temperature. Lastly, the 1X Hoechst 33342 was used for DNA staining. Olympus FV500-IX71 microscope (Olympus, Tokyo, Japan) was used to acquire images.
GO and KEGG analysis
To uncover the crucial target of miR199a, the 469 predicted target genes of miR199a were performed by GO term and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis on DAVID Bioinformatics Resources 6.8 (https://david.ncifcrf.gov/). The enrichment index with P < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant.
Stable SGK3 knockdown cell line construction
To construct and filtrate stable SGK3 knockdown cell lines, we used the lentivirus with puromycin resistance. The pLKO.1-shSGK3 or pLKO.1‐shRNA (negative control) plasmid andpsPA×2 and pMD2.G were co-transfected into HEK293T cells using lipofectamine® 2000 for incubating for 20 min at room temperature, then the culture medium was collected after 48 h and added to HepG2 and HuH7 cells with polybrene in a 10 µg/mL concentration (H9268; Sigma, St. Louis, MO, USA), and incubated for 24 h. Next, the cells were filtrated through 2 µg/mL puromycin (A1113803; Gibco, Grand Island, NY, USA). The lentivirus infected cells were puromycin-resistant, whereas the uninfected cells were not, therefore, the uninfected cells were removed by puromycin. Finally, the stable knockout cells were cultured and amplified for subsequent experiments. The shSGK3 sequence, 5’-CCGGGCCGAGATGTTGCTGAAATGTCTCGAGACATTTCAGCAACATCTCGGCTTTTTG-3’; the sequence for the shRNA: 5’-CCGGCCTGACCCTGAAGTTCATCTGCACGTGCAGATGAACTTCAGGGTCATTTTTG-3’.
Reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR)
Total RNA from frozen patient samples and cell lines was extracted using TRIzol reagent (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA, USA). RNA was converted to cDNA using the FastQuant RT kit (TIANGEN Biotech, Beijing, China) or Bulge-Loop miRNA qRT-PCR Starter Kit (Ribobio, Guangzhou, China). RT-qPCR was then conducted using SYBR Green PCR Master Mix (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA, USA). U6 small RNA and β-actin were used as endogenous control of miRNA and mRNA, respectively. The primers for miR199a and U6 were obtained from RiboBio (Guangzhou, China). The primer sequences used were designed and synthesised by Sango Biotech, Shanghai, China (Table S1). All samples were run in triplicate. The data analyses were performed with SDS 2.2.2 software.
Western blot assay
Proteins were electrophoresed by 10% SDS-PAGE and transferred to PVDF membranes (cat. no. AR0136-04, BOSTER, Wuhan, China). Next, the membranes were blocked in non-fat dry milk (~ 5%) for 40 min at room temperature on a shaker and incubated with special primary antibodies (1:1000) at 4°C overnight. Further, the membranes were washed and incubated with peroxidase-conjugated secondary antibody (anti-rabbit) in the blocking buffer for 1 h. Protein expression levels were visualised using an enhanced chemiluminescence kit (cat. no. P0020; Beyotime Institute of Biotechnology, Haimen, China). ImageJ software (National Institutes of Health Software) was used for Western blot densitometric analysis. Primary antibodies: SGK3 antibody, Cell Signalling Technology, (USA; cat. no. 8573S, dilution 1:1000); ACTIN antibody, BOSTER, (China; cat. no. BM0005, dilution 1:1000); AKT antibody, Cell Signalling Technology, (USA; cat. no. 9272, dilution 1:1000); Phospho-AKTSer 473(p-AKT) antibody, Cell Signalling Technology, (USA; cat. no. 4060, dilution 1:1000); mTOR antibody, Cell Signalling Technology, (USA; cat. no. 2972, dilution 1:1000); Phospho- mTORSer2448 (p-mTOR) antibody, Cell Signalling Technology, (USA; cat. no. 2971, dilution 1:1000); PCNA antibody, ThermoFisher Scientific, (USA; cat. no. 13-3900, dilution 1:1000).
Luciferase reporter assay
The 3ʹ-UTR or 3ʹ-UTR mutated sequence of SGK3 was synthesised and inserted into into the pmirGLO dualluciferase reporter plasmids (Promega, Madison, WI, USA). HEK293 cells overexpressing miR199a or its control were transfected with SGK3-3ʹ-UTR-Wt and SGK3-3ʹ-UTR-Mut. Post transfection for 24h, cells were lysed and extracts were prepared for luciferase activity detection with the kit (Promega, Madison, WI, USA).
Statistical analyses
Data are expressed as the means ± standard error of the mean (SEM) from at least three independent assays, analysed by GraphPad Prism version 7.0 (GraphPad Software Inc., La Jolla, CA, USA). Statistical differences were analysed by Student’s t-test. P < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant and achieved significant enrichment.