Transcriptional profiling of human cancer cell lines upon ZMPSTE24 silencing. Homo sapiens

Defining the aging-cancer relationship is a challenging task. Mice deficient in Zmpste24, a metalloproteinase mutated in human progeria and involved in nuclear prelamin A maturation, recapitulate many features of aging. However, their short lifespan and cell-intrinsic and -extrinsic alterations restrict the application and interpretation of carcinogenesis protocols. To circumvent these limitations we have generated Zmpste24 mosaic mice. Interestingly, these mice develop normally - revealing cell-extrinsic mechanisms are preeminent in progeria- and display decreased incidence of infiltrating oral carcinomas. Moreover, ZMPSTE24 knock-down reduces human cancer cell invasiveness. Our results disclose the ZMPSTE24-prelamin A system as an example of antagonistic pleiotropy on cancer and aging, support the potential of cell-based and systemic therapies for progeria, and highlight ZMPSTE24 as a new anticancer target. Overall design: We used siRNAs to silence ZMPSTE24 in different human cancer cell lines (SCC-40, SCC-2, A549 and MDA-MB-231), and compared their RNA expression profiles with those of mock treated cells. Each experimental condition (ZMPSTE24 or Scrambled siRNA) was performed in duplicate. Thus, a total of 16 array hybridizations were performed.