Treatment of heat shocked HeLa cells with siRNA (siHSF1#1)

Although HSF1 is known to play an important role in regulating the cellular response to proteotoxic stressors, little is known about the structure and function of the HSF1 signaling network under both stressed and unstressed conditions. In this study, we used a combination of chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) microarray analysis and time course gene expression microarray analysis with and without siRNA-mediated inhibition of HSF1 comprehensively identify genes directly and indirectly regulated by HSF1 and examine the structure of the extended HSF1 signaling network. Correlation between promoter binding and gene expression was not significant for all genes bound by HSF1 suggesting that HSF1 binding per se is not sufficient for expression. However, the correlation with promoter binding was significant for genes identified as HSF1-regulated following siRNA knockdown allowing the identification of direct transcriptional targets of HSF1. Among promoters bound by HSF1 following heat shock, a gene ontology (GO) analysis showed significant enrichment only in categories related to protein folding. In contrast, analysis of the extended HSF1 signaling network showed enrichment in a variety of categories related to protein folding, anti-apoptosis, RNA splicing, ubiquitination and others, highlighting a complex transcriptional program directly and indirectly regulated by HSF1.

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Page TJ, Sikder D, Yang L, Pluta L, Wolfinger RD, Kodadek T, Thomas RS