Project description:Both ovarian and pituitary hormones are required for the pubertal development of the mouse mammary gland. Estradiol directs ductal elongation and branching within the adipose stroma of the adolescent mouse mammary gland, while progesterone leads to tertiary branching and alveolar development. The purpose of this investigation was to identify the estrogen-responsive genes that are associated with estrogen-stimulated ductal elongation and branching in the mouse mammary gland in the absence of other ovarian hormones. We also wanted to determine if estrogen-responsive gene regulation at early stages of ductal elongation (ie. when ductal growth was minimal) was similar to those regulated after significant ductal elongation had occurred. To identify estrogen-regulated genes, ovariectomized prepubertal mice were exposed to 17beta-estradiol for four weeks, and mammary gland global gene expression analyzed by microarray analysis at various points during this time course. We determined that while many genes are regulated in all weeks of treatment, there remained a subset of genes that was uniquely regulated at each time-point. This observation was reflected in the biological functions of these genes; some categories were represented in all weeks of treatment while others were specific to only certain time-points. We have also identified estradiol-responsive genes in the mouse mammary gland that co-express with Estrogen Receptor alpha in human breast cancer, which may represent novel effectors of estrogen action and/or biomarkers for the progression of estrogen-dependent cancers and other estrogen-driven diseases. Experiment Overall Design: For each time-course experiment, one frozen #4 mammary gland was individually pulverized from four to five animals per treatment group, then homogenized in 3mL Trizol (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA) and RNA was prepared according to the manufacturerâ??s protocol. The RNA from individual animals was then pooled for each treatment group (four to five animals per group) and further purified using the QIAGEN (Valencia, CA) RNeasy Mini kit (Cat. No. 74104) clean-up protocol. Experiment Overall Design: Gene expression analysis was conducted using Agilent Mouse Oligo arrays (pattern number 011978) (Agilent Technologies, Palo Alto, CA). Total RNA was amplified using the Agilent Low RNA Input Fluorescent Linear Amplification Kit protocol. Starting with 500ng of total RNA, Cy3 or Cy5 labeled cRNA was produced according to manufacturerâ??s protocol. For each two color comparison, 750ng of each Cy3 and Cy5 labeled cRNAs were mixed and fragmented using the Agilent In Situ Hybridization Kit protocol. In each case, samples from estradiol-treated animals were co-hybridized with the day 7 placebo sample. Due to the rapid increase in adiposity in the mammary fat pad in the ovariectomized placebo-treated mice in days 14 and 28, the day 7 placebo sample was used as a control for all estradiol treated samples to avoid any variation due to this biological difference. Hybridizations were performed for 17 hours in a rotating hybridization oven using the Agilent 60-mer oligo microarray processing protocol. Slides were washed as indicated in this protocol and then scanned with an Agilent Scanner. Data was obtained using the Agilent Feature Extraction software (v7.5), using defaults for all parameters. Experiment Overall Design: The Agilent Feature Extraction Software performed error modeling, adjusting for additive and multiplicative noise. The resulting data were processed using the Rosetta ResolverÂ® system (version 7.1) (Rosetta Biosoftware, Kirkland, WA).

Project description:The efficacy and exceptionally good tolerance of estrogen blockade in the treatment of breast cancer is well recognized but novel agents are required, especially to take advantage of the multiple consecutive responses obtained in breast cancer progressing following previous hormone therapy, thus delaying the use of cytotoxic chemotherapy with its usually serious side effects. Acolbifene (ACOL) is a novel and unique antiestrogen completely free of estrogen-like activity in both the mammary gland and uterus while preventing bone loss. From the preclinical and clinical data so-far available, this new antiestrogen represents a unique opportunity for a highly potent and specific blockade of estrogen action in the mammary gland and uterus while exerting estrogen-like beneficial effects in other tissues (selective estrogen receptor modulator or SERM activity). In order to better understand the specificity of action of acolbifene, we have used Affymetrix GeneChips containing 45,000 probe sets to analyze 34,000 genes to determine the specificity of this compound compared to the pure antiestrogen fulvestrant, as well as the mixed antagonists/agonists tamoxifen and raloxifene to block the effect of estradiol (E2) and to induce effects of their own on gene expression in the mouse mammary gland. The genes modulated by E2 were those identified in two separate experiments and validated by quantitative real-time PCR (Q_RT-PCR). Three hours after the single subcutaneous injection of E2 (0.05 ug), the simultaneous administration of acolbifene, fulvestrant, tamoxifen and raloxifene blocked by 98%, 62%, 43% and 92% the number of E2-upregulated genes, respectively. On the other hand, 70%, 10%, 25% and 55% of the genes down-regulated by E2 were blocked by the same compounds. Acolbifene was also the compound which, when used alone, modulated the smallest number of genes also influenced by E2, namely 4%, thus possibly explaining the potent tumoricidal action of this compound in human breast cancer xenografts where 61% of tumors disappeared, thus bringing a new paradigm in the hormonal therapy of breast cancer. Female C57BL6 mice were ovariectomized (OVX). One week after OVX, mice were treated with EM-652.HCl (acolbifene), tamoxifen citrate, raloxifene or ICI 182780 (fulvestrant). Compounds were administered to OVX mice or to OVX mice simultaneously treated with 17b-estradiol (E2). Control groups received an injection of the vehicle alone. All animals were sacrificed after 3h of treatment.Mammary glands from all mice of the same group were collected and pooled. Total mRNA was isolated and converted to biotinylated cRNA.A microarray analysis was performed using Murine U74Av2 Affymetrix microarrays.

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Mus musculus

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