Figure 7

The switch-like behavior of TACSTD2 in breast cancer and its regulation. A) The scatter plot shows the gene expression level of TACSTD2 in the samples of breast cancer and other phenotypes from the integrated microarray dataset (E-TABM-185). Each datapoint in the scatter plot represents the TACSTD2 expression in one of the samples, with the x-axis indicating the expression level (the values are Log2(microarray-Signal)). In order to show all the samples, the values in y-axis are randomly generated to reduce the overlap between samples with similar TACSTD2 expression level. The breast cancer samples and the breast cancer cell lines, MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231, are separated from other samples for better comparison. Subtypes of breast cancers are determined by their expression levels of ESR1, PR, and Her2. Overall TACSTD2 is in the ON state for 99% of all breast cancer samples in the dataset (Additional file 1, Table S3). B) The TACSTD2 mRNA levels in human mammary epithelial cell line, MCF10A, in breast cancer cell lines, MCF7 and MDA-MB-231, and in primary rat astrocytes were measured by quantitative real-time PCR (n = 3). **: p < 0.01, ***: p < 0.001. A line indicates comparison between the two bars connected by the line. C) The mRNA-fold change of TACSTD2 in human mammary epithelial cell line and the different breast cancer cell lines upon FI treatment. Quantitative real-time PCR was performed to measure TACSTD2 mRNA expression levels in MCF10A, MCF7, and MDA-MB-231. The untreated cells (controls) and cells treated with 10 μM forskolin and 100 μM IBMX (FI) for 1 day (n = 3) are shown. **: p < 0.01, ***: p < 0.001. D), E), F) Flow cytometry analysis of TACSTD2 expression in MCF10A, MCF7 and primary rat astrocytes (Black lines). The cells were treated with 10 μM forskolin and 100 μM IBMX (FI) for 1 day (Red lines) and the two modes of TACSTD2 in MCF10A, MCF7, and primary astrocyte cell population are pointed out by the blue arrows. Note the primary astrocytes have only one mode.