TY - JOUR
T1 - The Effects of Heat Stress on the Transcriptome of Human Cancer Cells
T2 - A Meta-Analysis
AU - Scutigliani, Enzo M.
AU - Lobo-Cerna, Fernando
AU - Mingo Barba, Sergio
AU - Scheidegger, Stephan
AU - Krawczyk, Przemek M.
N1 - Funding Information: This work was supported by the Dutch Cancer Society (KWF), grant number 11143. This work is part of a project Hyperboost; www.Hyperboost-h2020.eu) that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska- Curie grant agreement No 955625”. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors.
PY - 2023/1/1
Y1 - 2023/1/1
N2 - Hyperthermia is clinically applied cancer treatment in conjunction with radio- and/or chemotherapy, in which the tumor volume is exposed to supraphysiological temperatures. Since cells can effectively counteract the effects of hyperthermia by protective measures that are commonly known as the heat stress response, the identification of cellular processes that are essential for surviving hyperthermia could lead to novel treatment strategies that improve its therapeutic effects. Here, we apply a meta-analytic approach to 18 datasets that capture hyperthermia-induced transcriptome alterations in nine different human cancer cell lines. We find, in line with previous reports, that hyperthermia affects multiple processes, including protein folding, cell cycle, mitosis, and cell death, and additionally uncover expression changes of genes involved in KRAS signaling, inflammatory responses, TNF-a signaling and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Interestingly, however, we also find a considerable inter-study variability, and an apparent absence of a ‘universal’ heat stress response signature, which is likely caused by the differences in experimental conditions. Our results suggest that gene expression alterations after heat stress are driven, to a large extent, by the experimental context, and call for a more extensive, controlled study that examines the effects of key experimental parameters on global gene expression patterns.
AB - Hyperthermia is clinically applied cancer treatment in conjunction with radio- and/or chemotherapy, in which the tumor volume is exposed to supraphysiological temperatures. Since cells can effectively counteract the effects of hyperthermia by protective measures that are commonly known as the heat stress response, the identification of cellular processes that are essential for surviving hyperthermia could lead to novel treatment strategies that improve its therapeutic effects. Here, we apply a meta-analytic approach to 18 datasets that capture hyperthermia-induced transcriptome alterations in nine different human cancer cell lines. We find, in line with previous reports, that hyperthermia affects multiple processes, including protein folding, cell cycle, mitosis, and cell death, and additionally uncover expression changes of genes involved in KRAS signaling, inflammatory responses, TNF-a signaling and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Interestingly, however, we also find a considerable inter-study variability, and an apparent absence of a ‘universal’ heat stress response signature, which is likely caused by the differences in experimental conditions. Our results suggest that gene expression alterations after heat stress are driven, to a large extent, by the experimental context, and call for a more extensive, controlled study that examines the effects of key experimental parameters on global gene expression patterns.
KW - gene expression
KW - heat shock response
KW - hyperthermia
KW - meta-analysis
KW - neoplasms
KW - transcriptome
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85146018844&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers15010113
DO - https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers15010113
M3 - Review article
C2 - 36612111
SN - 2072-6694
VL - 15
JO - Cancers
JF - Cancers
IS - 1
M1 - 113
ER -