SHE cells from colonies having been morphologi cally transformed after short exposure to chemical carci nogens induced tumours when transplanted back into hamsters. This validated the model and the cell transformation criteria for in vitro carcinogenicity. new post Recently, the SHE cell transformation assay has been recommended by OECD in 2007 as in vitro method of screening chemical carcinogens on the basis of its per formances to detect non genotoxic as well as genotoxic carcinogens. The aim of this work was to use a global transcrip tomic approach to understand the molecular mechan isms of cell transformation induced by DEHP in SHE cells. The objectives were to identify changes in gene expression occurring in the early steps of cell transfor mation as well as pathway disturbances that may trigger a carcinogenic process.
A characterization of the genes expressed in SHE cells at DEHP concentrations inducing cell transformation may give information on PPAR inde pendent mechanisms and alternative pathways of DEHP carcinogenicity. The transcriptomic changes induced by DEHP in SHE cells were analyzed in the first hours of exposure. We focused secondly on changes of cytoskele ton related genes underlying morphological transforma tion in SHE cells. Indeed, cell transformation is expressed by the alteration of cell morphology, a disor ganized pattern of colony growth and the acquisition of anchorage independent growth which is predictive of their ability to induce tumors when injected into syn genic animals.
Despite the Entinostat central role of the actin cytoskeleton throughout the life cycle, little is known about the gene expression changes involved in deregula tion of its dynamic in the first stages of tumorigenesis. Cytoskeleton defects in relation to cancer have been mostly studied in the late stages of cell invasion and metastasis. Differential Display was chosen to identify differen tially expressed genes in SHE cells and to explore the entire genome. The mRNA differential display described by Liang and Pardee is a powerful approach for transcriptomic analysis. This methodology has become popular as a tool for non model organisms because of lack of requirement of previous genomic information about the species of interest. As the genome of hamster is partly characterized so far, Differential Display appeared quite appropriate to study DEHP dose depen dent effects in SHE cells. We applied the current metho dology that uses a combination of 3 anchored oligo dT primers and 80 arbitrary primers of 13 mers. The 240 primer combination allowed us to obtain a level of 95% gene coverage. DD was applied to cells exposed for 24 hrs to DEHP. Genes corresponding to differentially expressed frag ments were characterized.