Orthopaedic Pathophysiology and Regenerative Medicine Unit, Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli IRCCS, 40136 Bologna, Italy.
Department of Clinical Laboratory Medicine, Shiga University of Medical Science, Otsu, Shiga 520-2192, Japan.
Int J Mol Sci. 2018 Sep 26;19(10):2930. doi: 10.3390/ijms19102930.
Similar to other types of cancer, acidification of tumor microenvironment is an important feature of osteosarcoma, and a major source of cellular stress that triggers cancer aggressiveness, drug resistance, and progression. Among the different effects of low extracellular pH on tumor cells, we have recently found that short-term exposure to acidosis strongly affects gene expression. This alteration might also occur for the most commonly used housekeeping genes (HKG), thereby causing erroneous interpretation of RT-qPCR data. On this basis, by using osteosarcoma cells cultured at different pH values, we aimed to identify the ideal HKG to be considered in studies on tumor-associated acidosis. We verified the stability of 15 commonly used HKG through five algorithms (NormFinder, geNorm, BestKeeper, ΔCT, coefficient of variation) and found that no universal HKG is suitable, since at least four HKG are necessary for proper normalization. Furthermore, according to the acceptable range of values, , , , and were the most stable reference genes at different pH. Our results will be helpful for future investigations focusing on the effect of altered microenvironment on cancer behavior, particularly on the effectiveness of anticancer therapies in acid conditions.
与其他类型的癌症类似,肿瘤微环境的酸化是骨肉瘤的一个重要特征,也是引发癌症侵袭性、耐药性和进展的细胞应激的主要来源。在低细胞外 pH 值对肿瘤细胞的不同影响中,我们最近发现,短期酸中毒强烈影响基因表达。这种改变也可能发生在最常用的管家基因(HKG)上,从而导致 RT-qPCR 数据的错误解释。在此基础上,我们通过在不同 pH 值下培养骨肉瘤细胞,旨在确定在肿瘤相关酸中毒研究中应考虑的理想 HKG。我们通过五种算法(NormFinder、geNorm、BestKeeper、ΔCT、变异系数)验证了 15 种常用 HKG 的稳定性,发现没有通用的 HKG 是合适的,因为至少需要四个 HKG 才能进行正确的归一化。此外,根据可接受的范围值,在不同 pH 值下, 、 、 、 和 是最稳定的参考基因。我们的研究结果将有助于未来的研究集中在改变的微环境对癌症行为的影响上,特别是在酸性条件下抗癌治疗的有效性。