Project description:HepG2 cell line CRISPR-Cas9 generated Knock-out in 4 cholesterol synthesis gene: CYP51, DHCR24, SC5D and HSD17B7 Excess of cholesterol associates with a variety of diseases so its synthesis must be under tight homeostatic control. The early part of cholesterol synthesis with rate-limiting HMGCR and SQLE steps is proceeded by the sterol part where numerous non-polar sterols with poorly defined biological functions are produced. To illuminate their role we developed knockouts (KO) for the consecutive enzymes that metabolize sterols towards cholesterol CYP51A1, DHCR24, SC5D resulted in the accumulation of specific set of sterols in each KO cell. Despite that, we targeted three steps of the cholesterol synthesis housekeeping pathway, the overlap of de-regulated genes was only 9%, suggesting that each set of sterols modulated the hepatic cell transcriptome uniquely. Lanosterol and 24,25-dihydrolanosterol, but not other non-polar sterols, provoked higher cell proliferation, cell cycle changes, and upregulation of metabolic pathways and transcription factors (TFs) associated with cancer progression and immune response like NFKB, SMAD, ESR1 and highly elevated LEF1 a protein from WNT signalling. In contrast, lathosterol and desmosterol caused slower proliferation and apoptosis promotion, through TFs like HNF1A and E2F. We were able to show how sterols from early part of synthesis can promote cell proliferation as sterols from end of synthesis suppress proliferation. These findings challenge the current dogma that sterols produced during cholesterol synthesis have similar biological functions
Project description:Purpose: To build a differential transcriptome network in Smug1 knock-out HepG2 hepatocarcinoma cells. Methods: Transcriptome analysis by the RNA-seq via mRNA pull-down. Results: We constructed transcriptome from Smug1 knock-out cells by using RNA-seq analysis. Nucleosome and miRNA related genes were highly enriched in Smug1 KO HepG2 cells. Conclusions: Smug1 regulate the gene expression related with nucleosome assembly and histone function.