Whole Genome Analysis and MicroRNAs Regulation in HepG2 Cells Exposed to Cadmium

Cadmium is a metal known to be toxic and carcinogenic, but its mechanism of action remains to be fully elucidated. We investigated the gene expression modulation in Human hepatoma cell line HepG2 after exposure to 2 µm and 10 µm cadmium using Agilent microarray. Furthermore, we evaluated the microRNA modulation after exposure to 10 µm Cd Low Density Array. At the low concentration a small number of genes are regulated and belongs to metallothionein family. At the higher concentration the pathway enrichment analysis for upregulated genes shows high numbers of pathways correlated to cancer, whereas the down regulated genes are enriched on pathways correlated to liver activity. A large percentage of regulated microRNAs belong to the let-7 family that has been described having oncosuppressor functions. Several pathways connected to cancer are regulated at the transcription level, and miRNAs have a potential impact on the modulation of this regulation.JRC.I.3-Molecular Biology and Genomic