Project description:The estrogen receptor (ER)M-NM-21 is successively lost during cancer progression, whereas its splice variant, ERM-NM-22, is expressed in advanced prostate cancer. The latter form of cancer often metastasizes to bone, and we wanted to investigate whether the loss of ERM-NM-21 and/or the expression of ERM-NM-22 affect such signaling pathways in prostate cancer. Using PC3 and 22Rv1 prostate cancer cell lines that stably express ERM-NM-21 or ERM-NM-22, we found that the ERM-NM-2 variants differentially regulate genes known to affect tumor behavior. We found that ERM-NM-21 repressed the expression of the bone metastasis regulator Runx2 in PC3 cells. By contrast, RUNX2 expression was up-regulated at the mRNA level by ERM-NM-22 in PC3 cells, whereas Slug was up-regulated by ERM-NM-22 in both PC3 and 22Rv1 cells. In addition, the expression of Twist1, a factor whose expression strongly correlates with high Gleason grade prostate carcinoma, was increased by ERM-NM-22. In agreement with the increased Twist1 expression, we found increased expression of Dickkopf homolog 1; Dickkopf homolog 1 is a factor that has been shown to increase the RANK ligand/osteoprotegerin ratio and enhance osteoclastogenesis, indicating that the expression of ERM-NM-22 can cause osteolytic cancer. Furthermore, we found that only ERM-NM-21 inhibited proliferation, whereas ERM-NM-22 increased proliferation. The expression of the proliferation markers Cyclin E, c-Myc, and p45(Skp2) was differentially affected by ERM-NM-21 and ERM-NM-22 expression. In addition, nuclear M-NM-2-catenin protein and its mRNA levels were reduced by ERM-NM-21 expression. In conclusion, we found that ERM-NM-21 inhibited proliferation and factors known to be involved in bone metastasis, whereas ERM-NM-22 increased proliferation and up-regulated factors involved in bone metastasis. Thus, in prostate cancer cells, ERM-NM-22 has oncogenic abilities that are in strong contrast to the tumor-suppressing effects of ERM-NM-21. The GFP vs. ERbeta1 comparison was carried out with three replicate dye-swaps, six arrays total. The GFP vs. ERbeta2 comparison was carried out with two replicate dye-swaps, four arrays total.

Project description:Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) such as bisphenol S (BPS) are xenobiotic compounds that can disrupt endocrine signaling following exposure due to steric similarities to endogenous hormones within the body. EDCs have been shown to induce disruptions in normal epigenetic programming (epimutations) that accompany dysregulation of normal gene expression patterns that appear to predispose disease states. Most interestingly, the prevalence of epimutations following exposure to many different EDCs often persists over multiple subsequent generations, even with no further exposure to the causative EDC. Many previous studies have described both the direct and prolonged effects of EDC exposure in animal models, but many questions remain about molecular mechanisms by which EDCs initially induce epimutations or contribute to the propagation of EDC-induced epimutations either within the exposed generation or to subsequent generations. Additional questions remain regarding the extent to which there may be differences in cell type-specific susceptibilities to various EDCs, and whether this susceptibility is correlative with expression of relevant hormone receptors and/or the location of relevant hormone response elements (HREs) in the genome. To address these questions, we exposed cultured mouse pluripotent (induced pluripotent stem [iPS]), somatic (Sertoli and granulosa), and germ (primordial germ cell like [PGCLCs]) cells to BPS and measured changes in DNA methylation levels at the epigenomic level and gene expression at the transcriptomic level. We found that there was indeed a difference in cell type-specific susceptibility to EDC-induced epimutagenesis and that this susceptibility correlated with differential expression of relevant hormone receptors and, in many cases, tended to generate epimutations near relevant HREs within the genome. Additionally, however, we also found that BPS can induce epimutations in a cell type that does not express relevant receptors and in genomic regions that do not contain relevant HREs, suggesting that both canonical and non-canonical signaling mechanisms can be disrupted by BPS exposure. Most interestingly, we found that when iPS cells were exposed to BPS and then induced to differentiate into PGCLCs, the prevalence of epimutations and differentially expressed genes (DEGs) initially induced in the iPSCs was largely retained in the resulting PGCLCs, however, >90% of the specific epimutations and DEGs were not conserved but were rather replaced by novel epimutations and DEGs following the iPSC to PGCLC transition. These results suggest a unique mechanism by which an EDC-induced epimutated state may be propagated transgenerationally following a single exposure to the causative EDC.

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EDCs gene expression profile in MCF7 cells

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