Fig. 3

hsa-miR-146a-5p is a potential downstream target of HCG18. (A) Venn diagram displays the potential downstream targets of HCG18. (B) The binding sites between HCG18 and hsa-miR-146a-5p. (C) The luciferase reporter gene assays showed that the luciferase activity of 293T cells was significantly reduced when the luciferase reporter gene plasmid containing the wild-type HCG18 sequence was co-transferred with hsa-miR-146a-5p (n = 3, *** p < 0.001). (D) Knocking down HCG18 significantly promoted hsa-miR-146a-5p expression, while overexpression of HCG18 significantly inhibited hsa-miR-146a-5p expression (n = 3, *** p < 0.001). (E) The expression level of hsa-miR-146a-5p was significantly reduced in clinical nucleus pulposus samples of spinal tuberculosis (n = 30, *** p < 0.001). (F) The expression level of hsa-miR-146a-5p was negatively correlated with HCG18 in spinal tuberculosis nucleus pulposus tissue (n = 30, p < 0.0001, R = -0.7130)