Expression data from 786-O renal cell cancer cells treated with pentamidine

While early stages of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) are curable, survival outcome for metastatic ccRCC remains poor. The purpose of the current study was to apply a new individualized bioinformatics analysis (IBA) strategy to these transcriptome data in conjunction with Gene Set Enrichment Analysis of the Connectivity Map (C-MAP) database to identify and reposition FDA-approved drugs for anti-cancer therapy. We demonstrated that one of the drugs predicted to revert the RCC gene signature towards normal kidney, pentamidine, is effective against RCC cells in culture and in a RCC xenograft model. Most importantly, pentamidine slows tumor growth in the 786-O human ccRCC xenograft mouse model. To determine which genes are regulated by pentamidine in a human RCC cell line, 786-O, we treated these cells with pentamidine and performed transcriptional profiling analysis. We used microarrays to determine the set of genes regulated by pentamidine in 786-O renal cell cancer cells. Total RNA was isolated from 786-O cells treated with 25 μM pentamidine or vehicle control (DMSO) for 6 hours and hybridized to Affymetrix microarrays.