Seminal plasma and transforming growth factor-β regulate gene expression in human Ect1 ectocervical epithelial cells

In this study we examined the influence of seminal plasma on gene expression in human Ect1 ectocervical epithelial cells, and the extent to which recombinant TGFβ3 elicits comparable changes. Ect1 cells were incubated with recombinant human TGFβ3 (5 ng/ml), 10% pooled human seminal plasma (v/v), or medium alone for 10h. RNA was reverse transcribed into cDNA and hybridized to Affymetrix GeneChip® Human Genome U133 plus 2.0 microarrays (Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA). Exposure of Ect1 cells to seminal plasma resulted in differential expression of a total of 3955 probe sets, identified using high stringency criteria with MAS 5.0 analysis. These corresponded to 1338 genes up-regulated and 1343 genes down-regulated by seminal plasma. TGFβ3 treatment of Ect1 cells resulted in differential expression of 884 probe sets, corresponding to 346 up-regulated genes and 229 down-regulated genes. The genes differentially regulated by seminal plasma included several genes associated with cytokine–cytokine receptor interaction, TGFβ signalling, JAK/STAT signalling or VEGF signalling pathways, as specified by the KEGG database. Of 47 genes in these families, 17 (36.1%) were similarly regulated by both seminal plasma and TGFβ3. These data, together with additional experiments showing all three TGFβ isoforms can regulate inflammatory cytokine expression in Ect1 cells, identify TGFβ isoforms as key agents in seminal plasma that signal induction of pro-inflammatory cytokine synthesis in cervical cells. RNA from each of four biological replicates, each comprising pooled material from separate sets of 4 replicate wells, was analysed for each treatment. Total RNA was reverse transcribed into cDNA and sent to the Australian Genome Research Facility (AGRF; Melbourne, Australia) for single-cycle labeling and hybridization to 12 Affymetrix GeneChip® Human Genome U133 plus 2.0 microarrays (Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA).