Fig. 5

NQO1 regulates the malignant progression of CRC cells through aerobic glycolysis. (A) GEPIA database showed that the mRNA expression of glycolytic markers in CRC tissue was significantly up-regulated; GeneMANIA, GEPIA and StarBase v3.0 databases showed the correlation between NQO1 mRNA and glycolysis markers mRNA; (B) Seahorse mitochondrial stress test quantitating OCR and ECAR in NQO1 differential expression groups of HCT-116 cells. (C) Western blot examined the expression of the glucose transporters and metabolic enzymes in CRC cells after differential expression of NQO1. (D) Western blot and IHC examined the expression of the glycolysis markers in CRC cells after differential expression of NQO1. (E) Glycolysis inhibitors 2-DG and 3-BrPA reverse NQO1 to promote the proliferation and migration of CRC cells by Colony formation assay and transwell assay. (F) Western blot showed that 2-DG and 3-BrPA reversed the down-regulation of E-cadherin expression and up-regulation of Vimentin and MMP9, ZEB1, Snail expression caused by the overexpression of NQO1. *P < 0.05, * * P < 0.01