Fig. 3

Oral cancer cell-derived EVs induce EndoMT in vascular endothelial cells. a–e HUAEC monolayers were treated with vehicle (PBS) or EVs (Ctrl-EVs or Tβ-EVs) for 72 h. a–e The expression of Snail (a), VEGFR2 (b), FGF2 (c), SM22α (d), or MMP2 (e) was analyzed by qRT-PCR. Data represent fold changes relative to β-actin. f Confocal images showing both the localization of VE-cadherin and the expression of SM22α in HUAECs. Cells were fixed and stained with anti-VE-cadherin (green) and anti-SM22α (magenta) antibodies. Nuclei were stained with Hoechst33342 (blue). Scale bars, 50 μm. g Quantification of SM22α-positive cells. All data are shown as the mean ± SD from three independent experiments. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, ****P < 0.0001 by ordinary one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s multiple comparisons test; ns, not significant