The effect of ACSL4 expression on overall gene expression in breast cancer cell lines

ACSL4 expression appears to be inversely associated with steroid hormone and growth factor receptor expression in breast cancer and positively correlated with an aggressive breast cancer phenotype. Neither MCF-7 nor SKBr3 cells normally express ACSL4, and when manipulated to do so, develop basal-like characteristics, including increased proliferation, migration and anchorage independent growth. We used an Affymetrix array platform to assess changes in individual gene expression as a function of conditional and stable expression of ACSL4 in MCF-7 and SKBr3 cells. In experiment 1, MCF-7 Tet-ON cells were transfected with ACSL4 cDNA and induced to express ACSL4 by addition of 1ug/ml of doxycycline (A) or vehicle (C) for 72 hours. Three controls (C) and three doxycycline-induced (A) samples were evaluated for gene expression. In experiment 2, MCF-7 cells were stably transfected with either an empty vector (C) or Lenti-ORF-ACSL4 (A). In experiment 3, SKBr3 cells were stably transfected with either an empty vector (C) or Lenti-ORF-ACSL4 (A).