Differential gene expression for A2780 human ovarian cancer cells when exposed to a new osmium-based anticancer agent

Platinum-based metallodrugs are the most widely used anticancer agents. Their reduced effectiveness after repeat dosing (resistance) constitutes a major clinical problem. In this experiment we study a potent organo-osmium compound with improved activity over cisplatin and no cross-resistance in platinum-resistant cancers. A2780 cells were exposed to an osmium anticancer compound and to a negative control solution, in triplicate. At 0, 4, 12, 24 and 48 h, cells were collected for each condition, and whole cell RNA was extracted. Samples were purified and QC checked before Truseq library preparation and Illumina sequencing. Each sample had approximately 30 million paired-end reads. Samples were mapped to the human genome using Tophat2 and differential expression analysed using edgeR.