Protein was isolated from cells following treatment with RIPA lysis buffer (Life-iLab Bio) and quantified using a Nano 300 protein detector (YPH-Bio). Protein separation (30 µg per lane) was achieved using 10% SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and the separated proteins were transferred to PVDF membranes (Roche Diagnostics). The membranes were incubated with 5% skimmed milk for 2 h at room temperature, with primary antibodies overnight at 4°C and HRP-conjugated secondary antibodies for 2 h at room temperature in sequence. The primary antibodies against LPCAT1 (cat. no. ab214034; 1:2,000), FOXA1 (cat. no. ab170933; 1:1,000), Ki67 (cat. no. ab92742; 1:5,000), proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA; cat. no. ab92552; 1:1,000), MMP2 (cat. no. ab92536; 1:1,000), MMP9 (cat. no. ab76003; 1:1,000), Bcl-2 (cat. no. ab32124; 1:2,000), Bax (cat. no. ab32503; 1:1,000), cleaved caspase 3 (cat. no. ab32042; 1:500) and GAPDH (cat. no. ab9485; 1:2,500), and the secondary antibodies (cat. no. ab6721; 1:4,000) were all from Abcam. Blots were visualized after treatment with Immobilon ECL Ultra Western HRP (Merck KGaA) and gray values were analyzed with ImageJ software (v1.8.0; National Institutes of Health).