Expression data from Saccharomyces cerevisiae treated with Small Molecule Enhancers of Rapamycin (SMERs)

The target of rapamycin (TOR) plays a central role in eukaryotic cell growth control. With prevalent hyper-activation of the mTOR pathway in human cancers, novel strategies to enhance TOR pathway inhibition are highly desirable. We used a yeast-based high-throughput chemical genetic screen to identify small-molecule enhancers of rapamycin (SMERs) and used whole genome expression analysis to identify their mechanisms of action. We treated yeast individually with SMERs 1-5, rapamycin, or DMSO (solvent control) for 30 minutes prior to RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays. Expression profiles of SMER-treated samples were compared to that of DMSO (solvent control) and rapamycin-treated samples to identify gene expression signatures unique to SMER-treated samples.