The binding of transcription factors (TFs) on target promoters was evaluated by performing the ChIP assay, as described previously (29 (link)). Briefly, lysed cells were sonicated (approximate chromatin fragment length: 200–500 bp), and chromatins (25 μg) were immunoprecipitated with concomitant antibody followed by overnight incubation at 4° C. The following antibodies were used for ChIP: anti-human pSMAD2/3 (S465/S467) (R&D Systems, MAB8935, lot no. CJRA0318051), anti-SLUG (Sigma, PRS3959, lot no. 87711801), anti-RBFOX2 (Abcam, ab57154, batch no. GR317972-9), normal rabbit IgG (Millipore, 12-370, lot no. 2295402) and normal mouse IgG (Millipore, 12-371B, lot no. 2332526). The immunoprecipitated protein–DNA complexes and 5% input were analyzed by qRT-PCR in triplicate using specific primers (Supplementary Table S10) flanking the predicted binding sites and SYBR Green Master Mix (Promega, A6002, lot no. 0000385100). All the ChIP experiments were performed at least thrice. IP values were normalized to input using the following formula: 2^(Ct_input – Ct_immunoprecipitation) (30 (link)). Resultant values were subsequently normalized to IgG control IP values. The significance between two different groups was identified using Student’s t-test. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.