Estrogen Coordinates Translation and Transcription Revealing a Role for NRSF in Human Breast Cancer Cells

Analysis of estrogen receptor (ER)-positive MCF7 cell total RNA expression and polysome-assiciated RNA expression following treatment with estradiol (E2) and vehicle (etoh). We used expression microarrays to measure polysome association and total RNA abundance in E2 treated MCF7. These data, along with previously published data, show that genes that are upregulated by estrogen treatment are biased towards association with polysomes. MCF7 cells were grown in hormone depleted media for three days before a 1 hour treatment with E2 or 0.1 % ethanol (vehicle). Total RNA was collected using standard methods and polysome-association RNA from the same cells were collected using sucrose gradient fractionation. Both RNA populations were purified, labeled, and hybridized to Affymetrix Human Genest arrays.