Gene expression profiling of human neural crest cells and smooth muscle cells treated with DMSO or Nutlin3a

Activation of the p53 transcription factor triggers apoptosis only in certain cell types. Human neural crest cells (hNCCs), which can be generated from human embryonic stem cells, undergo apoptosis when treated with the p53 activating drug Nutlin3a. In contrast, when hNCCs are differentiated towards the smooth muscle cell lineage (early-hSMCS), they no longer undergo apoptosis in response to Nutlin3a treatment. Here, we sought to determine whether the transcriptional response to p53 activation differs between cells that are susceptible to p53-driven apoptosis and cells that are resistant to p53-driven apoptosis. To this end, we performed RNA-seq to assess the transcriptional response to Nutlin3a treatment in hNCCs and early-hSMCs. Overall design: RNA-seq was performed on hNCCs and early-hSMCs treated with DMSO (vehicle control) or Nutlin3a for 8 hours. n=3 per cell type and treatment.

p53转录因子的激活仅在特定细胞类型中诱导细胞凋亡。可由人类胚胎干细胞诱导获得的人类神经嵴细胞（human neural crest cells，hNCCs），经p53激活药物Nutlin3a处理后会发生细胞凋亡。与之相对，当hNCCs向平滑肌细胞谱系分化为早期平滑肌细胞（early-hSMCS）后，便不再会在Nutlin3a处理下发生细胞凋亡。本研究旨在探究易受p53介导的细胞凋亡影响的细胞与抵抗该类凋亡的细胞之间，p53激活后的转录应答是否存在差异。为此，我们通过RNA测序（RNA-seq）评估了hNCCs与early-hSMCs经Nutlin3a处理后的转录应答情况。整体实验设计：分别以二甲基亚砜（DMSO，溶剂对照）或Nutlin3a处理hNCCs与early-hSMCs，处理时长为8小时；每类细胞与每种处理条件均设置3次生物学重复。