Whole transcriptome sequencing of the human thyroid primary cells with knock-down of the FOXE1 gene

FOXE1 gene (also known as thyroid transcription factor 2) has been reported to be essential for thyroid gland development and the maintenance of thyroid differentiated status. Current knowledge of FOXE1 regulated genes is mostly based on the expression and functional studies using cell line models. Here we report gene expression profiles of human thyroid primary cells on Day 5 treated with FOXE1 siRNA or nontarget siRNA. The primary cells were generated from fresh nontumorous thyroid tissues obtained from thyroid cancer patients. A number of new dysregulated genes of FOXE1 were discovered, including THBS1 and IGFBP3, which have not been reported as FOXE1 regulated genes before. This study reveals a novel role of FOXE1 in downstream gene regulation and provides a new explanation of FOXE1’s function in thyroid cancer. Profiling of 3 human thyroid primary cells (generated from 3 different patient samples) transfected with FOXE1 siRNA (75pmol) or with nontarget siRNA (75pmol) was performed using RNA-seq. Cells were cultured for 24h after transfection and then lysed prior to RNA isolation, DNase treatment, purification and RNA-seq library construction. SRA Study accession number is SRP076757 and BioProject accession number is PRJNA326158.