Autophagy and alternative NF-kappaB inhibition by RNAi against RELB, ATG5 or ULK1 in A549 human cancer cells

In order to understand the contribution of autophagy and alternative NF-kappaB signalling to transcriptional output in A549 lung cancer cells, RNAi was used to knockdown the expression of core autophagy genes (ATG5, ULK1) or the key subunit of alternative NF-kappaB RELB. Seven samples were prepared for each biological replicate; two sequence independent non-targeting control siRNAs were transfected as a negative control. Three sequence independent siRNAs targeting the core autophagy machinery were transfected (ATG5 si, ATG5 si(2), ULK1 si). N.B. ATG5 si(2) only partially ablates Atg5 protein expression whereas ATG si has greater efficacy. Two sequence independent siRNAs targeting RELB were transfected (RELB si, RELB si(2) ). Three independent biological replicates of all conditions were obtained, by performance of the experiment on different days.