Stanniocalcin 2 is an estrogen-responsive gene coexpressed with the estrogen receptor in human breast cancer

Abstract

Differences in gene expression are likely to explain the phenotypic variation between hormone-responsive and hormone-unresponsive breast cancers. In this study, DNA microarray analysis of ∼10,000 known genes and 25,000 expressed sequence tag clusters was performed to identify genes induced by estrogen and repressed by the pure antiestrogen ICI 182 780 in vitro that correlated with estrogen receptor (ER) expression in primary breast carcinomas in vivo. Stanniocalcin (STC) 2 was identified as one of the genes that fulfilled these criteria. DNA microarray hybridization showed a 3-fold induction of STC2 mRNA expression in MCF-7 cells in ≤3 h of estrogen exposure and a 3-fold repression in the pr..