MYC-regulated TERT expression in a TERT promoter mutation-independent manner. a The four indicated cancer cell lines harboring BRAF V600E mutation were treated with 0.5 μm PLX4032 and/or 10 nm MYC-specific siRNA (siMYC) for 24 h, which were then subjected to western blotting (upper panel) and qRT-PCR (lower panel). The relative TERT mRNA expression was normalized to the control group. b, c Parental and BRAF V600E knock-in SW48 cells were treated with control siRNA (siControl) or MYC-specific siRNA (siMYC, 10 nm) for 48 h, followed by western blotting (b) and luciferase reporter assays (c). *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, by two-tailed Student’s t test. n.s. not significant. All the values represent the average ± standard deviation (SD) of triplicate samples from a typical experiment. Similar results were obtained in two additional independent experiments