Project description:In this experiment we performed the transcriptional profiling of the wild type yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae upon treatment with lovastatin or zaragozic acid. These drugs are known to exert a repressing effect on the sterol branch of the isoprenoid pathway, but their action differs at the level of FPP biosynthesis. While lovastatin decreases FPP availability because it is an inhibitor of HMGR, zaragozic acid increases this level because it inhibits squalene synthase. In this work, we were interested especially in genes, whose expression would be oppositely regulated in the presence of lovastatin or zaragozic acid, since these genes could be affected by variation in FPP level and thus related somehow to the isoprenoid pathway.
Project description:The statins are a family of inhibitors of the 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase enzyme, which converts acetyl-CoA into mevalonic acid. Since HMG-CoA reductase catalyzes the rate-limiting step in the mevalonate pathway of cholesterol biosynthesis, it was thought that the major clinical benefit of statins was to reduce cholesterol levels in the bloodstream; statins are thus in wide clinical use for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease. Nonetheless, mevalonate is also the precursor of isoprenoid compounds, which are substrates for the post-translational modification of many proteins involved in cell signaling. The blockade of isoprenoid synthesis might explain the pleiotropic effects described for statins in extrahepatic tissues, including inhibition of pathogen infection and anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory activities. We used microarrays to find differentially expressed genes in spontaneous breast tumors from mice treated with lovastatin (Lov) or vehicle (ethanol) as control.
Project description:The statins are a family of inhibitors of the 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase enzyme, which converts acetyl-CoA into mevalonic acid. Since HMG-CoA reductase catalyzes the rate-limiting step in the mevalonate pathway of cholesterol biosynthesis, it was thought that the major clinical benefit of statins was to reduce cholesterol levels in the bloodstream; statins are thus in wide clinical use for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease. Nonetheless, mevalonate is also the precursor of isoprenoid compounds, which are substrates for the post-translational modification of many proteins involved in cell signaling. The blockade of isoprenoid synthesis might explain the pleiotropic effects described for statins in extrahepatic tissues, including inhibition of pathogen infection and anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory activities. We used microarrays to find differentially expressed genes in spontaneous breast tumors from mice treated with lovastatin (Lov) or vehicle (ethanol) as control. Standard single channel experimental design with biological replicates: gene expression signals from 5 treated tumor samples were compared to 5 non-treated tumor samples using Affymetrix GeneChips (MG430 v2.0).
Project description:Within this study, the non-model organism Myriophyllum spicatum was used to evaluate ecotoxic modes of action at the gene expression level. M. spicatum was exposed to low-effect concentrations of bentazone and atorvastatin in a shortened and modified version of the OECD guideline test No. 239, followed by RNA extraction of the shoot tip tissue and a subsequent RNA-seq analysis utilizing a de novo assembly of the transcriptome. While the herbicide bentazone is an inhibitor of photosynthesis, the widely spread pharmaceutical atorvastatin acts as an inhibitor of the hydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA reductase and thus the isoprenoid biosynthesis. The aim of this study was to determine molecular fingerprints and biomarkers distinguishing these distinct modes of action at a molecular level.