IGF2BP proteins Enhance mRNA stability

To evaluate the effect of IGF2BPs on mRNA stability and gene expression output, we conducted RNA-seq in individual IGF2BP knockdown and control HepG2 cells with or without actinomycin D treatment. Our RNA-seq and RNA stability profiling revealed that IGF2BPs were involved in RNA stability regulation and contributed to the stabilization of the transcriptome. HepG2 cells were infected with individual lentiviral IGF2BP shRNA and non-specific control (shNS), and selected by puromycin to generate stable knockdown lines. We treated HepG2 cells with actinomycin D to inhibit transcription and collected cells at indicated time points (i.e., 0h, 1h, 3h, 6h). The total RNA was extracted by miRNeasy Kit (Qiagen) and sequenced by Illumina. For IGF2BP-dependent gene expression, untreated cells (i.e., 0h samples) were sequenced in triplicate and analyzed. For RNA stability profiling, RNA half-life was calculated by comparing the gene expression at 1, 3, 6 hours with actinomycin treatment to that in un-treated samples, with two biological replicates for each group.