Differential gene expression in human hepatocellular carcinoma Hep3B cells induced by apoptosis-related gene BNIPL-2.

Bcl-2/adenovirus E1B 19 ku interacting protein 2-like (BNIPL-2) is a novel protein recently identified in our laboratory. BNIPL-2 is homologous to human BNIP-2, a potentially proapoptotic protein, and can interact with Bcl-2 and Cdc42GAP and promote apoptosis in BEL-7402 cells. Here we report the gene-expression profile regulated by BNIPL-2 in human hepatocarcinoma Hep3B cells and the analysis of its potential roles in cell apoptosis. BNIPL-2 was overexpressed in Hep3B cells using tetracycline inducible or Tet-on system. Screened by Western blot, the cells with low background and high induction fold of BNIPL-2 were obtained. We performed Atlas human cDNA expression array hybridization on these cells and analyzed the data with Quantarray software to identify BNIPL-2-regulated genes and their expression profile. RT-PCR was used to confirm the altered expression level of part of genes identified by the Atlas array hybridization. Fifteen of 588 genes spotted on the Atlas membrane showed altered expression levels in BNIPL-2-transfected Hep3B-Tet-on cells, in which 8 genes involved in cell apoptosis or growth inhibition were up-regulated and 7 genes involved in cellular proliferation were down-regulated following overexpression of BNIPL-2. cDNA array is a powerful tool to explore gene expression profiles under inducible conditions. The data obtained using the cDNA expression microarray technology indicates that BNIPL-2 may play its roles in apoptosis through regulating the expression of genes associated with cell apoptosis, growth inhibition and cell proliferation.