Antisense targeting of decoy exons can reduce intron retention and increase protein expression in human erythroblasts

Decoy inhibition increases spliced RNA and protein output. (A) Expression of spliced OGT transcript in decoy-inhibited cells, relative to expression in cells treated with a negative control MO. (B) OGT protein expression in two independent experiments was increased in cells treated with the OGT 5′ decoy MO, compared to cells treated with a control MO. GAPDH expression was used to normalize protein loading. In both experiments inhibition of IR was accompanied by ∼1.4-fold increase in protein expression. (C) OGT protein expression in two independent experiments was increased in cells treated with the OGT inhibitor OSMI-1, compared to cells treated with buffer alone.