Title: RNA-seq analysis of mRNA profiles in the livers of HuR flox/flox and hepatocyte-specific HuR knockout (HKO) mice fed with an MCD for 3 weeks.

ionPurpose: The goal of this study is to investigate how HuR regulates NASH progression. Methods: The hepatic mRNA profiles of HuR flox/flox and hepatocyte-specific HuR knockout (HKO) mice (n=3 for each group) fed with an MCD for 3 weeks were generated by deep sequencing using an Illumina Novaseq platform. Paired-end clean reads were aligned to the mouse reference genome(Ensemble_GRCm38.p6) with TopHat (version 2.0.12), and the aligned reads were used to quantify mRNA expression by using HTSeq-count (version 0.6.1). Conclusion: Our study represents the first detailed analysis of hepatic mRNA profiles in HuR flox/flox and hepatocyte-specific HuR knockout (HKO) mice fed with an MCD for 3 weeks, generated by RNA-seq technology. Our results show that 353 genes were upregulated and 422 genes were downregulated. Gene Ontology (GO) analysis showed that genes related to leukocyte migration, leukocyte chemotaxis, cell chemotaxis, neutrophil migration and Fc receptor signaling pathway were significantly decreased, which contributes to the protective effects of NASH progression in HKO mice. The hepatic mRNA profiles in HuR flox/flox and hepatocyte-specific HuR knockout (HKO) mice (n=3 for each group) fed with an MCD for 3 weeks were generated by deep sequencing using Illumina Novaseq platform.