Retinoid-induced growth arrest of breast carcinoma cells involves co-activation of multiple growth-inhibitory genes.

Retinoids are used in leukemia therapy and chemoprevention of cancers. Treatment of MCF-7 breast carcinoma cells with low doses of retinoids induces gradual proliferation arrest with phenotypic markers of senescence. cDNA microarray hybridization and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction analysis showed that retinoid-induced growth arrest in MCF-7 cells in associated with strong induction of 13 genes. Four of these genes (IGF-binding protein 3, EPLIN, beta IG-H3 and FAT10) have antiproliferative activity; EPLIN and beta IG-H3 are also known to be selectively inhibited in transformed relative to normal cells. The functions of the induced genes may also account for other cellular effects of retinoids, including the proteasome-mediated protein degradation, increased cell adhesion, and retinoic acid synthesis. Only one of 13 strongly induced genes (ring finger protein TRIM31) contains a putative retinoid response element in its promoter; TRIM31 also shows the most rapid kinetics of induction by retinoids. In contrast, the antiproliferative genes contain no identifiable retinoid response elements in their promoters and show more gradual induction kinetics, suggesting that these genes are indirectly induced by retinoids. Elucidation of the mechanisms that mediate co-induction of growth-inhibitory genes in retinoid-treated cells may suggest an approach to reproducing the growth-inhibitory effect of retinoids in retinoid-insensitive human cancers.