Analysis of genes in HNSCC cells regulated following exposure to cisplatin and involved in tumourigenesis

Analysis of genes regulated by cisplatin exposure, using non-tumourigenic keratinocytes to filter out genes regulated following cisplatin exposure that are unlikely to be involved in tumourigenesis. Results identify genes that may be important in mediating an increase in tumourigenic potential in cisplatin-resistant HNSCC cells. Where indicated, cisplatin (CDDP)-treated cells were incubated after treatment to allow susceptible cells to undergo cell death. Two time points were used to investigate earlier and later gene expression changes following cisplatin treatment. The FaDu and Detroit-562 cell lines were sorted at the indicated times to obtain the smallest 10-20% of cells as these had been previously found to be the cells with the highest viability following treatment. Total RNA was obtained from head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) cells (FaDu, Detroit-562) at 2 timepoints subsequent to cisplatin treatment, and compared to untreated control cells. Genes differentially expressed in the same direction in non-tumourigenic human epidermal keratinocytes (HEKs) were excluded from subsequent analyses as these were deemed unlikely to be involved in mediating tumourigenic potential. There were a total of 9 conditions analysed, with 3 biological replicates for each, for a total of 27 samples. The supplementary file 'GSE20185_non-normalized.txt' contains non-normalized data for Samples GSM506367-GSM506393.