Department of Drug Discovery and Biomedical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA.
Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA.
Clin Exp Pharmacol Physiol. 2020 Oct;47(10):1758-1763. doi: 10.1111/1440-1681.13366.
We hypothesized that the correlation of the whole transcriptome with quantifiable phenotypes may unveil genes contributing to the regulation of the corresponding response. We tested this hypothesis in cultured fibroblasts exposed to diverse pharmacological and biological agents, to identify genes influencing chemoattraction of breast cancer cells. Our analyses revealed several genes that correlated, either positively or negatively with cell migration, suggesting that they may operate as activators or inhibitors of this process. Survey of the scientific literature showed that genes exhibiting positive or negative association with cell migration had frequently been linked to cancer and metastasis before, while those with minimal association were not. The current methodology may formulate the basis for the development of novel strategies linking genes to quantifiable phenotypes.
我们假设整个转录组与可量化表型的相关性可能揭示出参与调节相应反应的基因。我们在培养的成纤维细胞中测试了这一假设，这些细胞暴露于不同的药理学和生物学制剂中，以鉴定影响乳腺癌细胞趋化性的基因。我们的分析揭示了几个与细胞迁移呈正相关或负相关的基因，这表明它们可能作为该过程的激活剂或抑制剂发挥作用。对科学文献的调查表明，以前与细胞迁移呈正相关或负相关的基因经常与癌症和转移有关，而与细胞迁移关联最小的基因则没有。目前的方法学可能为将基因与可量化表型联系起来制定新的策略奠定基础。
