Genome-Wide STAT3 binding sites in DU145 prostate cancer cells coupled to expression analysis

Activation of Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3 (STAT3) is common in prostate cancers. STAT3 may induce cell proliferation and resistance to apoptosis, as well as promote tumor angiogenesis, invasion, and migration by activating gene expression. Many STAT3-dependent transcriptional responses are mediated through protein-protein interactions that involve the amino-terminal domain (N-domain). In this study, we found that inhibition of the STAT3 N-domain using novel inhibitor ST3-Hel2A-2 induces apoptotic death in prostate cancer cells. The cell death was accomponied by robust activation of pro-apoptotic gene. Using chromatin immunoprecipitation and tiling human promoter arrays (ChIP-chip), we have defined genome-wide targets of STAT3 in DU145 prostate cancer cells. We found that upregulated pro-apoptotic genes were bound by STAT3 in prostate cancer cells, and that STAT3 binding was decreased following inhibition of the STAT3 N-domain. Chromatin samples were ChIPed with STAT3 vs. IgG from DU145 cells treated with ST3-Hel2A-2 for 3 hr or DMSO as a control.