Runx transcriptional program for control of cell adhesion and survival

The Runx genes are important in development and cancer, where they can act either as oncogenes or tumour supressors. We compared the effects of ectopic Runx expression in established fibroblasts, where all three genes produce an indistinguishable phenotype entailing epithelioid morphology and increased cell survival under stress conditions. Gene array analysis revealed a strongly overlapping transcriptional signature, with no examples of opposing regulation of the same target gene. A common set of 50 highly regulated genes was identified after further filtering on regulation by inducible RUNX1-ER. This set revealed a strong bias toward genes with annotated roles in cancer and development, and a preponderance of targets encoding extracellular or surface proteins reflecting the marked effects of Runx on cell adhesion.

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Wotton S, Terry A, Kilbey A, Jenkins A, Herzyk P, Cameron E, Neil JC