Microarrays Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Microarrays, including details on experiments, designs, statistics, analysis, software.

Microarray analysis of altered gene expression in murine fibroblasts transformed by nickel(II) to nickel(II)-resistant malignant phenotype.

Kowara R, Karaczyn A, Cheng RY, Salnikow K, Kasprzak KS

Laboratory of Comparative Carcinogenesis, National Cancer Institute at Frederick, MD 21702, USA. Renata.Kowara@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca

B200 cells are Ni(II)-transformed mouse BALB/c-3T3 fibroblasts displaying a malignant phenotype and increased resistance to Ni(II) toxicity. In an attempt to find genes whose expression has been altered by the transformation, the Atlas Mouse Stress/Toxicology cDNA Expression Array (Clontech Laboratories, Inc., Palo Alto, CA) was used to analyze the levels of gene expression in both parental and Ni(II)-transformed cells. Comparison of the results revealed a significant up- or downregulation of the expression of 62 of the 588 genes present in the array (approximately 10.5%) in B200 cells. These genes were assigned to different functional groups, including transcription factors and oncogenes (9/14; fractions in parentheses denote the number of up-regulated versus the total number of genes assigned to this group), stress and DNA damage response genes (11/12), growth factors and hormone receptors (6/9), metabolism (7/7), cell adhesion (2/7), cell cycle (3/6), apoptosis (3/4), and cell proliferation (2/3). Among those genes, overexpression of beta-catenin and its downstream targets c-myc and cyclin D1, together with upregulated cyclin G, points at the malignant character of B200 cells. While the increased expression of glutathione (GSH) synthetase, glutathione-S-transferase A4 (GSTA4), and glutathione-S-transferase theta (GSTT), together with high level of several genes responding to oxidative stress, suggests the enforcement of antioxidant defenses in Ni-transformed cells.

Published 11 May 2005 in Toxicol Appl Pharmacol, 205(1): 1-10.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Microarrays Research Today. All Rights Reserved.