Time-course effect of estradiol and ERa17p on Early Gene expression in MDA-MB-231 cells. Homo sapiens

ERα17p is a synthetic peptide corresponding to the sequence P295LMIKRSKKNSLALSLT311 of the estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) and initially synthesized to mimic its calmodulin binding site. ERα17p was subsequently found to elicit estrogenic responses in E2-deprived ERα-positive breast cancer cells, increasing proliferation and E2-dependent gene transcription. Surprisingly, in E2-supplemented media, ERα17p induced apoptosis and modified the actin network, influencing thereby cell motility. Here, we report that ERα17p induces a massive early (3h) transcriptional activity in breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231. Overall design: Cells after a 4h incubation with medium containing 10% charcoal stripped FBS were incubated with or without E2 (10-6M) or ERa17p in RPMI 1640 supplemented with 10% charcoal stripped FBS, for 3 hours. Total RNA was isolated using Nucleospin II columns (Macheray-Nagel, Dttren, Germany), according to the manufacturer’s instructions. RNA was labeled and hybridized according to the Affymetrix protocol (Affymetrix Gene-Chip Expression Analysis Technical Manual), using the HGU133A plus 2 chip, analyzing a total of 54675 transcripts. Signals were detected by an Affymetrix microarray chip reader.