Cell Culture and Transfection

Hepatocellular cancer cell lines (HepG2, M97H, LM3, Bel7402, SK-HEP1, and Huh7) were acquired from the American Type Culture Collection (Virginia, USA). They were cultured in Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle Medium (Hyclone) with 10% fetal bovine serum (Gibco) under incubation at 37°C with 5% carbon dioxide. Transfections were performed applying OPTI-MEM (Invitrogen) and Lipofectamine 3000 by the manufacturer’s instructions. The siMETTL18 (5′-GACTTTCCTTAGACTGTTA-3′) and siNC were bought from RiboBio (Guangzhou, China) and introduced into cells at a concentration of 50 nM. The transfected cells were harvested at 48 h after transfection.