title: A transcriptomic analysis of human centromeric and pericentric sequences in normal and tumor cells.
abstract: Although there is now evidence that the expression of centromeric (CT) and pericentric (PCT) sequences are key players in major genomic functions, their transcriptional status in human cells is still poorly known. The main reason for this lack of data is the complexity and high level of polymorphism of these repeated sequences, which hampers straightforward analyses by available transcriptomic approaches. Here a transcriptomic macro-array dedicated to the analysis of CT and PCT expression is developed and validated in heat-shocked (HS) HeLa cells. For the first time, the expression status of CT and PCT sequences is analyzed in a series of normal and cancer human cells and tissues demonstrating that they are repressed in all normal tissues except in the testis, where PCT transcripts are found. Moreover, PCT sequences are specifically expressed in HS cells in a Heat-Shock Factor 1 (HSF1)-dependent fashion, and we show here that another independent pathway, involving DNA hypo-methylation, can also trigger their expression. Interestingly, CT and PCT were found illegitimately expressed in somatic cancer samples, whereas PCT were repressed in testis cancer, suggesting that the expression of CT and PCT sequences may represent a good indicator of epigenetic deregulations occurring in response to environmental changes or in cell transformation.
authors.affiliation: INSERM, U823, Université Joseph Fourier, Institut Albert Bonniot, La Tronche F-38706, Grenoble.
authors.forename: Angéline
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Eymery
authors.forename: Béatrice
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Horard
authors.forename: Michèle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: El Atifi-Borel
authors.forename: Geneviève
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fourel
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Berger
authors.forename: Anne-Laure
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Vitte
authors.forename: Arnaud
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Van den Broeck
authors.forename: Elisabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Brambilla
authors.forename: Alexandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fournier
authors.forename: Mary
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Callanan
authors.forename: Sylvie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gazzeri
authors.forename: Saadi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Khochbin
authors.forename: Sophie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rousseaux
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Gilson
authors.forename: Claire
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Vourc'h
mesh_terms: D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D002503:Centromere / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D042002:Chromatin Assembly and Disassembly; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D006367:HeLa Cells; D018869:Heat-Shock Response; D006801:Humans; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D043244:Ribonuclease III / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D043244:Ribonuclease III