Pancreatic cell adhesion to Netrin-4 promotes cell cycle exit and fosters the expression of pro-differentiation genes.

<p>Heatmap of select genes that are either down-regulated (<b>A</b>) or up-regulated (<b>B</b> and <b>C</b>) by an 18-hours exposure of fetal pancreatic cells to Netrin-4. Data are presented as fold increase over time 0′. Note that known negative regulators of the cell cycle such as p57/kip2 and p27/kip1 are up-regulated (<b>A</b>), whereas positive regulators such as cyclins are down-regulated (<b>A</b>). Conversely, a number of genes whose function has been linked to events of cellular differentiation are all up-regulated (<b>B</b>, <b>C</b>). Changes in expression of select genes exemplified in panels <b>A</b> and <b>B</b> were validated by qPCR (<b>D</b>), where a value of 1 is equal to no change in gene expression. Complete array data have been deposited in the EBI Array Express Database (accession number pending). Data presented in <b>D</b> are representative of two independent experiments.