Profiling of zinc altered gene expression in human prostate normal (HPR-1) and malignant (PC-3) cells

To gain a better understanding of the zinc effect on prostate cells, gene expression profiling analyses were conducted using HPR-1 and PC-3 cells treated with or without zinc (1,500 ng/ml) after 24 hrs serum-depletion. Zinc effect on gene expression was evaluated at 1, 3, and 6 hrs of zinc treatment compared to the control, using human genome survey microarray chips. A total of 6,110 identified genes exhibited three expression patterns in response to zinc a threshold of ±2.5 folds: suppressed (3,534 in PC-3; 1,953 in HPR-1), increased (571 in PC-3; 872 in HPR-1), and otherwise altered (16 in PC-3; 13 in HPR-1). Keywords: Zinc effect, time course, cell type comparison Zinc effect on gene expression of HPR-1 and PC-3 cells was evaluated with a time-course study using human genomewise microarray chips (Applied Biosystems v 2.0). For each chip, 2µg total RNA from each sample was used. A series of samples from each cell line was prepared as follows: control, 1 hr, 3 hrs, and 6 hrs zinc exposure. Synthesis of cRNA and subsequent hybridization was completed by the Core Facility at UMBI according to the ABI standard protocol. The ABI human genome survey microarray chip contained 32,878 probes for the interrogation of 29,098 known genes