Authors: Nadine A Binai Gert Carra Johannes Löwer Roswitha Löwer Silja Wessler
Publish Date: 2013/02/15
Volume: 44, Issue: 2, Pages: 496-503
Abstract
In postmenopausal women adipositas represents a serious risk factor for cancer development and progression White adipose tissue secretes the 16 kDa hormone leptin which plays a key role in the regulation of appetite and metabolism An increasing number of reports indicate that leptin also interferes with signal transduction pathways implicated in the development of breast cancer In our previous study we identified the estrogen receptor alpha ERα as a relevant enhancer of leptininduced signal transduction leading to transactivation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 Stat3 The purpose of this study is the investigation of specific target gene expression in response to leptinmediated Stat3 signaling We performed a comprehensive microarray analysis of ERαpositive and ERαnegative MDAMB231 cells upon leptin treatment and identified 49 genes which showed a significant ERαdependent regulation in leptintreated MDAMB231 cells There was no intersection with genes which were merely up or downregulated by ERα expression and only 9 and 11 genes overlapping targets which were regulated by leptin stimulation either in ERαexpressing or ERαnegative MDAMB231 cells respectively To demonstrate the specificity expression of three target genes was validated by quantitative realtime PCR In conclusion these data imply that leptin can induce a different set of target genes dependent on ERα expression which might contribute to the development and progression of cancer diseases
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