Regulation of gene expression upon inhibition of ROCK and MLCK in mammary epithelial cells

To understand how mechanical cues regulate cell metabolism, we compared early changes in gene expression in Ras-transformed MCF10AtK1 mammary epithelial cells grown in high cytoskeletal tension conditions (plastics) vs. cells grown in low cytoskeletal tension conditions (inhibition of the non-muscle myosin II regulatory kinases ROCK and MLCK with standard small-molecule inhibitors Y27632 and ML7, respectively). Keywords: Expression profiling by array MCF10ATk1 (also knon as MII) growing at low confluence on plastics in standard growth conditions were treated for 6 hours with DMSO (control) or with 20microM Y27632 and 20microM ML7 to inhibit cell contractility (i.e. ROCK and MLCK kinases, master regulators of non-muscle myosin activity), and then harvested for total RNA extraction. 3 independent biological replicates were performed in parallel for each cell line and experimental condition.