We report the genome-wide identification of estrogen receptor alpha (ERalpha)-binding regions in mouse liver using a combination of chromatin immunoprecipitation and tiled microarrays that cover all nonrepetitive sequences in the mouse genome. This analysis identified 5568 ERalpha-binding regions. In agreement with what has previously been reported for human cell lines, many ERalpha-binding regions are located far away from transcription start sites; approximately 40% of ERalpha-binding regions are located within 10 kb of annotated transcription start sites. Almost 50% of ERalpha-binding regions overlap genes. The majority of ERalpha-binding regions lie in regions that are evolutionarily conserved between human and mouse. Motif-finding algorithms identified the estrogen response element, and variants thereof, together with binding sites for activator protein 1, basic-helix-loop-helix proteins, ETS proteins, and Forkhead proteins as the most common motifs present in identified ERalpha-binding regions. To correlate ERalpha binding to the promoter of specific genes, with changes in expression levels of the corresponding mRNAs, expression levels of selected mRNAs were assayed in livers 2, 4, and 6 h after treatment with ERalpha-selective agonist propyl pyrazole triol. Five of these eight selected genes, Shp, Stat3, Pdgds, Pck1, and Pdk4, all responded to propyl pyrazole triol after 4 h treatment. These results extend our previous studies using gene expression profiling to characterize estrogen signaling in mouse liver, by characterizing the first step in this signaling cascade, the binding of ERalpha to DNA in intact chromatin.

The aim of this study was to validate the role of estrogen receptor a (ERa) signaling in the regulation of glucose metabolism, and to compare the molecular events upon treatment with the ERa-selective agonist propyl pyrazole triol (PPT) or 17b-estradiol (E 2 ) in ob/ob mice. Female ob/ob mice were treated with PPT, E 2 or vehicle for 7 or 30 days. Intraperitoneal glucose and insulin tolerance tests were performed, and insulin secretion was determined from isolated islets. Glucose uptake was assayed in isolated skeletal muscle and adipocytes. Gene expression profiling in the liver was performed using Affymetrix microarrays, and the expression of selected genes was studied by real-time PCR analysis. PPTand E 2 treatment improved glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity. Fasting blood glucose levels decreased after 30 days of PPT and E 2 treatment. However, PPT and E 2 had no effect on insulin secretion from isolated islets. Basal and insulin-stimulated glucose uptake in skeletal muscle and adipose tissue were similar in PPT and vehicle-treated ob/ob mice. Hepatic lipid content was decreased after E 2 treatment. In the liver, treatment with E 2 and PPT increased and decreased the respective expression levels of the transcription factor signal transducer and activator of transcription 3, and of glucose-6-phosphatase. In summary, our data demonstrate that PPTexerts anti-diabetic effects, and these effects are mediated via ERa.

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Radiation-induced chromosomal instability has many features in common with genomic instability of cancer cells. In order to understand the delayed cellular response to ionizing radiation we have studied variations in the patterns of gene expression in primary human lymphocytes at various time points after gamma irradiation in vitro. Cells either exposed to 3 Gy of gamma rays in vitro or unexposed were subjected to long-term growth in bulk culture or as individual T-cell clones. Samples were taken at days 7, 17 or 55 from bulk cultures. The T-cell clones were harvested after 22-46 days. Total RNA was used to generate cDNA probes for hybridization to oligonucleotide arrays containing 12,625 gene templates (Affymetrix). The results showed that: (i) irradiation as well as culture time influence the gene expression patterns, (ii) the number of genes with increased or decreased expression in irradiated cells increases dramatically with increasing culture time, (iii) the changes of gene expression showed a significantly more diversified pattern in the irradiated T-cell clones than in non-irradiated clones. We conclude that the diversification of the transcriptome associated with radiation exposure reflects subtle changes of expression in many genes, rather than being the result of major changes in a few genes. Finally, (iv) we sorted out a set of genes whose change of expression correlates with radiation exposure in both bulk cultures and T-cell clones. Very few of these genes overlap with genes that change during the acute response to radiation. This set of genes may be regarded as a starting point for further studies of the cellular phenotype associated with radiation-induced genomic instability.

We have genotyped 657 Norwegian men, including 282 lung cancer patients (147 non-operable and 135 operable) and 375 healthy referents (210 smokers and 165 non-smokers), to study the possibility that glutathione S-transferase M1 (GSTM1)-null and/or N-acetyl transferase 2 (NAT2)-slow genotypes confer susceptibility towards lung cancer in smokers. Compared with smoking referents, there was a significant over-representation of the GSTM1-null genotype among patients with squamous cell carcinoma (SQ) [odds ratio (OR) = 1.7, 95% confidence interval (95%CI) = 1.1-2.7], and the NAT2-slow genotype among patients with large cell carcinoma or mixed histological diagnosis (LM) (OR = 2.5, 95%CI = 1.0-6.1). In contrast to operable patients, non-operable patients showed a clear over-representation of slow genotypes if they were younger (

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