Fig. 2

THRIL and miR-19a interacted with each other but did not regulate the expression of each other. The potential interaction between THRIL and miR-19a was predicted by IntaRNA 2.0. It was observed that THRIL and miR-19a may form strong base pairing (a). Dual luciferase reporter assay was used analyze the interaction between THRIL and miR-19a. HBEpCs were co-transfected with either THRIL vector and miR-19a (miR-19a group) or THRIL vector and NC miRNA (NC group). Luciferase activity was measured at 48 h post-transfection and was compared between two groups (b). HBEpCs were transfected with THRIL expression vector or miR-19a mimic to explore the interaction between them. The overexpression of THRIL and miR-19a was confirmed at 48 h post-transfection (c). The effects of the overexpression of THRIL and miR-19a on the expression of each other were also analyzed by RT-qPCR at 48 h post-transfection (d). All experiments were repeated 3 times and mean ± SD values were presented. *, p < 0.05