Comparative study of transcriptome from human breast cancer cell lines MCF7 treated with trichodermin

Trichodermin is a member of a group of closely related compounds-the 12,13-epoxytrichothecenes that form a medically and economically important class of mycotoxins. This sesquiterpene was purified by HPLC from cultures of the fungi Trichoderma brevicompactum. We report the antitumoral activity of trichodermin and here we show that trichodermin had inhibitory effects against tumoral cell lines (A-549, MCF-7, Hep-G2, Hep-G3). In addition, trichodermin was found to increase the expression level of apoptotic genes such as jun, fos, egr, egr2, casp9, ankd1, socs3 anddkk1 that induce cell death mechanisms, being the nuclear receptor subfamily 4, group A, member 1(NR4A1) one of the central molecule in the network. Human Gene 1.0 ST expression chips (Affymetrix, Inc., Santa Clara, CA, USA) containing 28,869 genes probes were used. Trichodermin was found to increase the expression level of apoptotic genes such as jun, fos, egr, egr2, casp9, ankd1, socs3 and dkk1 that induce cell death mechanisms. MCF-7 cells were grown for 8 h in the absence (C) or presence of 10 µM trichodermin (T). Trichodermin was purified by HPLC from fermentation broth of 14-days-old potato dextrose broth (PDB) (Difco Becton Dickinson, Sparks, MD) cultures of T. brevicompactum strain IBT 40841 as previously described (Tijerino et al., 2011). Three replicates for each condition were performed.