LATS regulates heavy metal response

Heavy metals are essential integral parts of cells and environmental toxicants, whose deregulation is associated with severe cellular dysfunction and various diseases. The Hippo pathway plays a critical role in organ size control and cancer development. In this study, we use RNA-Seq to investigate the role of the Hippo pathway in regulating heavy metal response gene transcription. Specifically, the difference of transcriptional profiles between the wild-type and the Hippo pathway kinases LATS1/2-deficient HEK293A cells was examined under control- and heavy metals zinc and cadimuim treated-conditions. Overall design: To profile the LATS1/2-dependent transcriptome as regulated by heavy metals, we obtained the total RNAs from wild-type and the LATS1/2-double knockout HEK293A cells under the respective treatment of H2O, ZnCl2 (250 uM) and CdCl2 (50 uM) for 4 hours. Three biological replicates were performed.