Molecular and functional characterization of Aryl hydrocarbon receptor repressor from the chicken (Gallus gallus): interspecies similarities and differences

Inflammasome expression is higher in ovarian tumors than in normal ovary

Chronic inflammation fundamentally influences cancer risk and development. A mechanism of chronic inflammation is the formation of inflammasome complexes which results in the sustained secretion of the pro-inflammatory cytokines IL1β and IL18. Inflammasome expression and actions vary among cancers. There is no information on inflammasome expression in ovarian cancer (OvCa). To determine if ovarian tumors express inflammasome components, mRNA and protein expression of NLRP3 (nucleotide-binding domain, leucine-rich repeat family, pyrin domain containing 3), caspase-1, IL1β, and IL18 expression in hen and human OvCa was assessed. Chicken (hen) OvCa a valid model of spontaneous human OvCa. Hens were selected into study groups with or without tumors using ultrasonography; tumors were confirmed by histology, increased cellular proliferation, and expression of immune cell marker mRNA. mRNA expression was higher for hallmarks of inflammasome activity (caspase-1, 5.9x increase, p = 0.04; IL1β, 4x increase, p = 0.04; and IL18, 7.8x increase, p = 0.0003) in hen OvCa compared to normal ovary. NLRP3, caspase-8 and caspase-11 mRNA did not differ significantly between tumor and non-tumor containing ovaries. Similar results occurred for human OvCa. Protein expression by immunohistochemistry paralleled mRNA expression and was qualitatively higher in tumors. Increased protein expression of caspase-1, IL1β, and IL18 occurred in surface epithelium, tumor cells, and immune cells. The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR), a potential tumor suppressor and NLRP3 regulator, was higher in hen (2.4x increase, p = 0.002) and human tumors (1.8x increase, p = 0.038), suggesting a role in OvCa. Collectively, the results indicate that inflammasome expression is associated with hen and human OvCa, although the NLR sensor type remains to be determined.

Epigenome-wide analysis of DNA methylation in lung tissue shows concordance with blood studies and identifies tobacco smoke-inducible enhancers

Smoking-associated DNA hypomethylation has been observed in blood cells and linked to lung cancer risk. However, its cause and mechanistic relationship to lung cancer remain unclear. We studied the association between tobacco smoking and epigenome-wide methylation in non-tumor lung (NTL) tissue from 237 lung cancer cases in the Environment And Genetics in Lung cancer Etiology study, using the Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip. We identified seven smoking-associated hypomethylated CpGs (P < 1.0 × 10-7), which were replicated in NTL data from The Cancer Genome Atlas. Five of these loci were previously reported as hypomethylated in smokers' blood, suggesting that blood-based biomarkers can reflect changes in the target tissue for these loci. Four CpGs border sequences carrying aryl hydrocarbon receptor binding sites and enhancer-specific histone modifications in primary alveolar epithelium and A549 lung adenocarcinoma cells. A549 cell exposure to cigarette smoke condensate increased these enhancer marks significantly and stimulated expression of predicted target xenobiotic response-related genes AHRR (P = 1.13 × 10-62) and CYP1B1 (P < 2.49 × 10-61). Expression of both genes was linked to smoking-related transversion mutations in lung tumors. Thus, smoking-associated hypomethylation may be a consequence of enhancer activation, revealing environmentally-induced regulatory elements implicated in lung carcinogenesis.

The aryl hydrocarbon receptor repressor - More than a simple feedback inhibitor of AhR signaling: Clues for its role in inflammation and cancer

The aryl hydrocarbon receptor repressor (AhRR) was first described as a specific competitive repressor of aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) activity based on its ability to dimerize with the AhR nuclear translocator (ARNT) and through direct competition of AhR/ARNT and AhRR/ARNT complexes for binding to dioxin-responsive elements (DREs). Like AhR, AhRR belongs to the basic Helix-Loop-Helix/Per-ARNT-Sim (bHLH/PAS) protein family but lacks functional ligand-binding and transactivation domains. Transient transfection experiments with ARNT and AhRR mutants examining the inhibitory mechanism of AhRR suggested a more complex mechanism than the simple mechanism of negative feedback through sequestration of ARNT to regulate AhR signaling. Recently, AhRR has been shown to act as a tumor suppressor gene in several types of cancer cells. Furthermore, epidemiological studies have found epigenetic changes and silencing of AhRR associated with exposure to cigarette smoke and cancer development. Additional studies from our laboratories have demonstrated that AhRR represses other signaling pathways including NF-κB and is capable of regulating inflammatory responses. A better understanding of the regulatory mechanisms of AhRR in AhR signaling and adverse outcome pathways leading to deregulated inflammatory responses contributing to tumor promotion and other adverse health effects is expected from future studies. This review article summarizes the characteristics of AhRR as an inhibitor of AhR activity and highlights more recent findings pointing out the role of AhRR in inflammation and tumorigenesis.

Role of AHR, AHRR and ARNT in response to dioxin-like PCBs in Spaurus aurata

The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) mediates a variety of biological responses to ubiquitous dioxin and PCB dioxin-like. AHR together with ARNT, AHRR, represent a novel basic helix-loop-helix/PAS family of transcriptional regulators. Their interplay may affect the xenobiotic response. The aim of this study was to investigate, by histological, immunohistochemical investigations and western-blot analysis, the expression of AHR, ARNT and AHRR in liver of seabrem (Spaurus aurata) after exposure at different time to dioxin-like PCB126 in order to deep the knowledge about their specific role. The findings showed a significant increase of AHR and ARNT expression in juvenile fishes after 12 h than control group. The induction of AHR and ARNT is also significant at 24 and 72 hours compared to the control group. Furthemore, induction of AHRR expression has proved to increase both 12 h but this induction does not seem significant to 24 and 72 hours. The most important data of this work is that the induction of AHRR, when the action of the toxic persistence substances, as dioxin and PCB-126, it is not enough to reduce AHR signaling and thus its hyperactivation leads to toxic effects in seabrem (Spaurus aurata). All this confirms the importance of AHR ligands as new class of drugs that can be directed against severe disease such as cancer.

Molecular and functional characterization of a novel aryl hydrocarbon receptor isoform, AHR1β, in the chicken (Gallus gallus)

Dioxins including 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) cause toxic effects through activation of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR)-mediated signaling pathway. Our previous studies have investigated the function of 2 AHR isoforms (AHR1 and AHR2) in avian species and identified a third AHR in the chicken (Gallus gallus) genome. Knowledge of multiple avian AHRs is indispensable to understand molecular mechanisms of AHR-mediated toxic effects and establish risk assessment framework for environmental AHR ligands in avian species. In this study, we successfully isolated a third novel AHR1-like cDNA from chicken and designated it as chicken AHR1 beta (ckAHR1β). The mRNA expression of ckAHR1β was primarily detected in the liver, and the hepatic protein expression was confirmed by Western blotting. Although mRNA expression of ckAHR1β was not altered by in ovo TCDD exposure, ckAHR1β exhibited specific binding to [(3)H]TCDD, TCDD-dependent nuclear translocation, and interaction with xenobiotic responsive elements (XREs) and AHR nuclear translocators (ARNTs). In vitro XRE-driven reporter gene assays revealed ckAHR1β-mediated transactivation of TCDD in a dose-dependent manner, showing a 10-fold reduced sensitivity (high EC50) compared with that mediated by ckAHR1. The mutation of Val(371) to Ser(371) in the ligand-binding domain of ckAHR1β shifted the TCDD-EC50 toward the value observed in ckAHR1, indicating the critical roles of the amino acid in sensitivity. Furthermore, ckAHR1β-mediated transactivation of TCDD was enhanced by 17β-estradiol (E2)-activated chicken estrogen receptor α (ckERα), suggesting a positive cross talk between ckERα and ckAHR1β signaling pathway. Both TCDD-induced and its enhanced activities by E2 were suppressed by the ckAHR repressor in a manner similar to ckAHR1. Collectively, our findings discover the role of ckAHR1β in dioxin toxicity and give an insight into the evolutionary history of the AHR signaling pathway.

Correlation between TCDD acute toxicity and aryl hydrocarbon receptor structure for different mammals

The 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) toxicity has large species differences, and TCDD exerts its toxicity by binding into aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR). In this study, we applied bioinformatics approaches to quantitatively analyze the correlation between TCDD acute toxicity and AHRs. Seven mammalian AHRs were chosen as target receptors. Low conserved functional domains of AHRs were identified and quantitatively characterized. Linear regression was applied to determine the relationships of different mammalian AHRs and TCDD LD(50) values. The results indicated that ligand binding domain and glutamine-rich domain of mammalian AHRs showed a low degree of conservation. Based on previous literatures, the number of glutamine residues (NOQ) and binding free energy with TCDD were applied to quantitatively represent the differences of glutamine-rich domain and ligand binding domain, respectively. Then, regression equations between studied mammalian AHR structures and TCDD LD(50) were constructed, and high linear correlation was found (R(2)=0.986). This study indicated that mammalian differences of TCDD acute toxicity might be partly determined by the differences of glutamine-rich domain and ligand binding domain of AHR, which provides a potential insight to analyze the species differences of TCDD toxicity.

Poor prognosis of gastric adenocarcinoma with decreased expression of AHRR

Background

The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) repressor (AHRR), a member of growing superfamily, is a basic-helix-loop-helix/Per-AHR nuclear translocator (ARNT)-Sim (bHLH-PAS) protein. Recently, AHRR has been proposed to function as a putative new tumor suppressor gene based on some relevant studies in multiple types of human cancers. This current study aims to investigate AHHR expression and its prognostic significance in primary gastric adenocarcinoma.

Methodology/Principal Findings

The expression level of AHRR was analyzed using real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR), western blotting, and immunohistochemical staining. It was clearly showed that the expression status of AHRR was reduced in tumor tissue samples compared with that in matched adjacent non-tumor tissue samples by RT-qPCR (P = 0.0423) and western blotting analysis (P = 0.004). Moreover, data revealed that AHRR without exon 8 (the active isoform) was the predominant form either in tumor tissues (66.7%, 8/12) or in matched adjacent non-tumor tissues (100.0%, 12/12), and the mRNA level of this isoform was significantly reduced in tumor tissues (P = 0.006). Immunohistochemistry analysis indicated that AHRR expression was significantly decreased in 175 of 410 (42.7%) gastric adenocarcinoma cases. Kaplan-Meier survival curves and Multivariate Cox analysis revealed that decreased expression of AHRR was significantly associated with poor prognosis in gastric adenocarcinoma patients.

Conclusions/Significance

Our data suggests that, in primary gastric adenocarcinoma, AHRR may play as a suppressor gene and its expression status has the potential to be an independent prognostic factor.

Differential display system with vertebrate-common degenerate oligonucleotide primers: uncovering genes responsive to dioxin in avian embryonic liver

To assess possible impacts of environmental pollutants on gene expression profiles in a variety of organisms, we developed a novel differential display system with primer sets that are common in seven vertebrate species, based on degenerate oligonucleotide-primed PCR (DOP-PCR). An 8-mer inverse repeat motif was found in most transcripts from the seven vertebrates including fish to primates with detailed transcriptome information; more than 10,000 motifs were recognized in common in the transcripts of the seven species. Among them, we selected 275 common motifs that cover about 40-70% of transcripts throughout these species, and designed 275 DOP-PCR primers that were common to seven vertebrate species (common DOP-PCR primers). To detect genes responsive to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) in developing embryos, differential display with common DOP-PCR primers was applied to embryonic liver of two avian species, the chicken (Gallus gallus) and the common cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo), which were exposed in ovo to TCDD. The cDNA bands that showed differences between the control and TCDD-treated groups were sequenced and the mRNA expression levels were confirmed by real-time RT-PCR. This approach succeeded in isolating novel dioxin-responsive genes that include 10 coding genes in the chicken, and 1 coding gene and 1 unknown transcript in the cormorant, together with cytochrome P450 1As that have already been well established as dioxin markers. These results highlighted the usefulness of systematically designed novel differential display systems to search genes responsive to chemicals in vertebrates, including wild species, for which transcriptome information is not available.