UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Demonstration of the Presence of the "Deleted" MIR122 Gene in HepG2 Cells

Hamad, IA; Fei, Y; Kalea, AZ; Yin, D; Smith, AJ; Palmen, J; Humphries, SE; ... Walker, AP; + view all (2015) Demonstration of the Presence of the "Deleted" MIR122 Gene in HepG2 Cells. PLOS One , 10 (3) , Article e0122471. 10.1371/journal.pone.0122471. Green open access

[thumbnail of Humphries_journal.pone.0122471.pdf]
Preview
Text
Humphries_journal.pone.0122471.pdf

Download (211kB) | Preview

Abstract

MicroRNA 122 (miR-122) is highly expressed in the liver where it influences diverse biological processes and pathways, including hepatitis C virus replication and metabolism of iron and cholesterol. It is processed from a long non-coding primary transcript (~7.5 kb) and the gene has two evolutionarily-conserved regions containing the pri-mir-122 promoter and pre-mir-122 hairpin region. Several groups reported that the widely-used hepatocytic cell line HepG2 had deficient expression of miR-122, previously ascribed to deletion of the pre-mir-122 stem-loop region. We aimed to characterise this deletion by direct sequencing of 6078 bp containing the pri-mir-122 promoter and pre-mir-122 stem-loop region in HepG2 and Huh-7, a control hepatocytic cell line reported to express miR-122, supported by sequence analysis of cloned genomic DNA. In contrast to previous findings, the entire sequence was present in both cell lines. Ten SNPs were heterozygous in HepG2 indicating that DNA was present in two copies. Three validation isolates of HepG2 were sequenced, showing identical genotype to the original in two, whereas the third was different. Investigation of promoter chromatin status by FAIRE showed that Huh-7 cells had 6.2 ± 0.19- and 2.7 ± 0.01- fold more accessible chromatin at the proximal (HNF4α-binding) and distal DR1 transcription factor sites, compared to HepG2 cells (p=0.03 and 0.001, respectively). This was substantiated by ENCODE genome annotations, which showed a DNAse I hypersensitive site in the pri-mir-122 promoter in Huh-7 that was absent in HepG2 cells. While the origin of the reported deletion is unclear, cell lines should be obtained from a reputable source and used at low passage number to avoid discrepant results. Deficiency of miR-122 expression in HepG2 cells may be related to a relative deficiency of accessible promoter chromatin in HepG2 versus Huh-7 cells.

Type: Article
Title: Demonstration of the Presence of the "Deleted" MIR122 Gene in HepG2 Cells
Location: United States
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0122471
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0122471
Language: English
Additional information: © 2015 Hamad et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Medicine
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Medicine > Department of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Cardiovascular Science
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Cardiovascular Science > Population Science and Experimental Medicine
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1463210
Downloads since deposit
130Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item