Mouse Elk oncogene maps to chromosome X and a novel Elk oncogene (Elk3) maps to chromosome 10

Highly and moderately aggressive mouse ovarian cancer cell lines exhibit differential gene expression

Patients with advanced epithelial ovarian cancer often experience disease recurrence after standard therapies, a critical factor in determining their five-year survival rate. Recent reports indicated that long-term or short-term survival is associated with varied gene expression of cancer cells. Thus, identification of novel prognostic biomarkers should be considered. Since the mouse genome is similar to the human genome, we explored potential prognostic biomarkers using two groups of mouse ovarian cancer cell lines (group 1: IG-10, IG-10pw, and IG-10pw/agar; group 2: IG-10 clones 2, 3, and 11) which display highly and moderately aggressive phenotypes in vivo. Mice injected with these cell lines have different survival time and rates, capacities of tumor, and ascites formations, reflecting different prognostic potentials. Using an Affymetrix Mouse Genome 430 2.0 Array, a total of 181 genes were differentially expressed (P < 0.01) by at least twofold between two groups of the cell lines. Of the 181 genes, 109 and 72 genes were overexpressed in highly and moderately aggressive cell lines, respectively. Analysis of the 109 and 72 genes using Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) tool revealed two cancer-related gene networks. One was associated with the highly aggressive cell lines and affiliated with MYC gene, and another was associated with the moderately aggressive cell lines and affiliated with the androgen receptor (AR). Finally, the gene enrichment analysis indicated that the overexpressed 89 genes (out of 109 genes) in highly aggressive cell lines had a function annotation in the David database. The cancer-relevant significant gene ontology (GO) terms included Cell cycle, DNA metabolic process, and Programmed cell death. None of the genes from a set of the 72 genes overexpressed in the moderately aggressive cell lines had a function annotation in the David database. Our results suggested that the overexpressed MYC and 109 gene set represented highly aggressive ovarian cancer potential biomarkers while overexpressed AR and 72 gene set represented moderately aggressive ovarian cancer potential biomarkers. Based on our knowledge, the current study is first time to report the potential biomarkers relevant to different aggressive ovarian cancer. These potential biomarkers provide important information for investigating human ovarian cancer prognosis.

Comparative FISH mapping of mouse and rat homologues of twenty-five human X-linked genes

We constructed a comparative cytogenetic map of 25 functional genes in mouse and rat X chromosomes by direct R-banding fluorescence in situ hybridization. Nineteen and 22 out of the 25 genes, which have been mapped on the human X chromosome, were newly localized to mouse and rat X chromosomes, respectively. Twenty-two additional genes were integrated in the rat-mouse-human comparative map of the X chromosome in this study. Comparison of the gene order indicated the presence of four chromosome segments with conserved linkage homology between mouse and rat X chromosomes, suggesting that a minimum of four chromosomal inversion events occurred between mouse and rat X chromosomes during the evolution of the two species. Four chromosome segments with conserved linkage homology were found between human and rat X chromosomes.

Molecular cloning of Elk-3, a new member of the Ets family expressed during mouse embryogenesis and analysis of its transcriptional repression activity

We isolated a cDNA clone, Elk-3, that encodes a novel Ets transcription factor from 16-day mouse embryos. The deduced amino acid sequence of the protein was homologous to human ELK-1 and SAP-1. This protein, ELK-1, and SAP-1 shared some unique structural properties such as an Ets DNA-binding site in the amino-terminal region, a serum response factor interacting domain and phosphorylation sites of serine or threonine residues in the carboxy-terminal region. Northern blotting weakly revealed that two transcripts of 4 and 2.1 kb are expressed in the adult ovary and lung and a 2.1-kb transcript predominated in 8- to 14-day embryos. We assayed the transcriptional activities of Elk-3 protein on the cytokeratin EndoA enhancer containing Ets binding sites in endodermal cells. Elk-3 protein strongly repressed enhancer activity but did not affect the activity of the basal promoter in the absence of the enhancer. Furthermore, Elk-3 can suppress the activity of Ets-2 as the transcriptional activator on the EndoA enhancer. These data suggested that the Elk-3 gene product plays a role in transcriptional regulation during embryogenesis.

Structure and organization of the mouse elk1 gene

In the ets gene family of transcription factors, elk1 belongs to the subfamily of Ternary Complex Factors (TCFs) which bind to the Serum Response Element (SRE) in conjunction with a dimer of Serum Response Factors (SRFs). In this communication we report the isolation of cDNAs from the mouse elk1 gene, containing the full coding sequence homologous (87% identical) to the human gene, and the structure and organization of 22 kb of the mouse elk1 locus. The coding sequence is spread through 5 exons (numbered 1 to 5): exons 1 to 4 range from 102 bp to 447 bp and exon 5 is at least 620 bp. Exon 0 was not found in the 8.5 kb sequence upstream of exon 1. The intron between exons 1 and 2 is 4 kb long and the 3 other introns are less than 500 bp long. This information will be useful to engineer targeted mutations of this gene in mice and to determine the genomic structure of the other TCF genes.