Fig. 7: HDLBP is required for tumor xenograft growth and formation.

a Relative confluence, viability, and DNA content of A549 parental or HDLBP KO cells. Representative confluence masks are shown (left panel). Unpaired t-test was used to test for significance (***p < 0.001). b Wound healing of WT or HDLBP KO cells. The wound closure was monitored for 20 h upon damage (right panel). The wound density was calculated 20 h post damage (middle panel). Representative confluence masks are shown (left panel). Unpaired t-test (left) and two-way ANOVA (right) were used to test for significance (both ***p < 0.001). c CD71 surface expression of WT or HDLBP KO cells. The mean fluorescent intensity (MFI) of CD71 was determined by flow cytometry experiments. d Wound healing of A549 cells stably transfected with doxycycline-inducible HDLBP overexpression (see Fig. 5g). The wound density was calculated 20 h post damage (right panel). Representative confluence masks are shown (left panel). Unpaired t-test was used to test for significance (***p < 0.001). e Schematic of mouse injection experiment. WT or HDLBO KO A549 cells were injected into the right and left flanks of athymic nude mice. Tumor formation was followed in eight mice over 21 days post-injection. f Tumor volume (in mm³) was quantified 7, 14, and 21 days post-injection (left panel). Box plots of log2-transformed tumor volume formed from KO or WT cells are shown. An unpaired two-sided t-test was used for comparisons. The number of palpable tumors per group is given in parentheses. Tumor weight was quantified 21 days post-injection (right panel). Box plots of tumor weight (in mg) formed from KO or WT cells are shown. An unpaired two-sided t-test was used for comparisons. In case of the absence of a tumor, weight was plotted as 0. The lower and upper hinges of box plots correspond to the 25th and 75th percentiles, respectively. Upper and lower whiskers extend from the hinge to the largest or smallest value no further than the 1.5× interquartile range from the hinge, respectively. Center lines of box plots depict the median values. g Gene Ontology enrichment analysis of down and upregulated mRNAs in tumors from HDLBP KO cells. Adjusted p values for the top six enriched categories are shown. h Differences in fold change (HDLBP KO vs. WT tumors) were compared between membrane-bound and cytosolic mRNAs, as determined in the HEK293 RNA-seq fractionation experiment. A two-sided Wilcoxon rank-sum test was used to test for significance. a–d Data were presented as mean values ± SD. a–h Source data are provided as a Source Data file.