Stress-related gene expression of HK-2 cells exposed to GF/FAF HSA, GF HSA, or AngII

Atlas Human Stress Arrays with 234 stress-related genes immobilised on nylon membranes (Clontech, UK) were used to identify the changes in mRNA expression in human proximal tubular HK-2 cells in response to HSA overload or AngII. Keywords: Stress response Immortalised human proximal renal tubular epithelial HK-2 cells were growth arrested for 48 h in serum-free medium (SFM) without added growth factors. Prior to RNA isolation, cells were exposed for 24 h to 30 mg/ml of globulin-free fatty acid-free (GF/FAF) human serum albumin, globulin-free human serum albumin with attached fatty acids (GF) or 1 uM AngII in SFM. In order to minimize the number of false positives and negatives in mRNA expression equal amounts of total RNA from 3 separate experiments were pooled together.