The role of the Calcium-Sensing receptor in colorectal cancer

The Calcium-Sensing receptor (CaSR) is a G proteins-coupled receptor involved in calcium homeostasis. The CaSR regulates cell proliferation and apoptosis and has been suggested to play an antitumor role in colorectal cancer. However it is down-regulated during carcinogenesis and in more malignant tumors its expression is lost. We stably transfected with a lentiviral system a colorectal cancer cell line (HT29) to over-express the CaSR: HT29CaSR-GFP. As control we transfected the HT29 with a vector containing only GFP, generating thus the HT29GFP cells. We tested whether the CaSR has an impact on gene transcription and whether its stimulation via a CaSR specific positive allosteric modulator, namely NPS-R568 (here indicated as R568), would further enhance CaSR effects. We treated either the HT29CaSR-GFP and the HT29GFP with 1µM of R568 or with 0.1% DMSO (as untreated control) for 48 hours. With three biological replicates per each condition we performed the RNAseq.