Research Paper Volume 16, Issue 5 pp 4904—4919

Figure 4. Inhibition of miR-18a-5p induced premature senescence of UCMSCs. (A) Relative expression of miR-18a-5p following passaging was analyzed by quantitate RT-PCR. (B) Western blot assay of CTDSPL expression after miR-NC inhibitor or miR-18a-5p inhibitor transfection. (C) SA-β-gal staining of UCMSCs transfected with miR-NC inhibitor or miR-18a-5p inhibitor. (D) SA-β-gal positive cells were quantified (n = 3). (E) Western blot assay of p16 expression in UCMSCs after miR-NC or miR-18a-5p inhibitor transfection. (F) Schematic representation of the reporter plasmids psiCHECK2-CTDSPL-3UTR-Wild, psiCHECK2-CTDSPL-3UTR-Mutation and psiCHECK2-CTDSPL-3UTR-Delation. (G) Luciferase reporter assay was performed to verify the direct repression of CTDSPL by miR-18a-5p. ^*p < 0.05; ^**p < 0.01.