A pathologist scored protein

expression as the percentage of positive tumor cells (scale 0–100%) 17-AAG with a staining intensity from 0–3+. Positive IHC expression was defined as >25% staining with an intensity of 2–3 +. Cell culture and RNA interference (RNAi) Human GC cell lines SGC7901 and MGC803 (CBTCCCAS, Shanghai, China) were cultured in RPMI-1640 (Life Technologies, Gibco BRL, Grand Island, NY, USA) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS; Invitrogen), penicillin/streptomycin (1:100 dilution; Sigma, St. Louis, MO), and 4 mM glutamine (Life Technologies, Gibco BRL) at 37°C/5% CO2. RNAi assays were conducted according to previous methods [18]. Western blotting assays Western blotting was used to detect expression levels of proteins as described previously [18, 23]. We used antibodies against AQP3 (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Santa Cruz, CA), vimentin, E-cadherin, Snail, AKT, phospho-AKT(Ser473) (Cell Signaling Technology, Beverly, MA), fibronectin (R&D systems, Minneapolis, MN), and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) (Beyotime Institute of Biotechnology,

Henan, China). Densitometric analysis of proteins was conducted and normalized against GAPDH. The PI3 kinase inhibitor LY294002, was obtained from Cell Signaling Technology (Beverly, MA). Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assays We conducted qPCR assays using previously NU7441 solubility dmso described protocols [18, 23] and the manufacturer’s instructions. We used GAPDH as the reference gene for analysis, with observed expression levels normalized to the expression level of GAPDH. Specific primer sequences check details were used to amplify targets for AQP3 (5′-CTC GTG AGC CCT GGA TCA AGC-3′ and 5′-AAA GCT GGT TGT CGG CGA AGT-3′), vimentin (5′-ATC TGG ATT CAC TCC CTC TGG TTG-3′ and 5′-CAA GGT CAT CGT GAT GCT GAG AAG-3′), fibronectin (5′-TGT TAT GGA GGA AGC CGA GGT T-3′ and 5′-AGA TCA TGG AGT CTT TAG GAC GCT C-3′), E-cadherin (5′-AAT CCA AAG CCT CAG GTC ATA AAC A-3′ and 5′-GGT TGG GTC

GTT GTA CTG AAT GGT), and GAPDH (5′-CGC TGA GTA CGT CGT GGA GTC-3′ and 5′-GCT GAT GAT CTT GAG GCT GTT GTC-3′). All qPCR assays were performed in triplicate. Cell proliferation assays Cells (3 × 104) were seeded in triplicate in 96-well plates and allowed to incubate for 48 h at 37°C/5% CO2. An EdU Fludarabine cell line incorporation assay was used to determine cell proliferation according to the manufacturer’s protocol (RiboBio, Guangzhou, China). We used a fluorescence microscope (Olympus Corporation, Tokyo, Japan) to visualize our results. All experiments were performed in triplicate and repeated three times. Transwell migration and invasion assays According to a previous protocol [5], cells (3 × 105 cells/well) were seeded in the upper chambers of 24-well transwell inserts (8.