Abstract
Perinatal exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) has been shown to reprogram the hepatic epigenome of rodents and may promote the development of various metabolic diseases later in life, such as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). This developmental reprogramming is characterized by the creation of “super promoters” at target genes implicated in metabolic pathways. While it is unclear how these “super promoters” are created, their creation is potentially mediated through BPA and estrogen receptor (ER) interaction. In order to test this potential mechanism, in vitro methods were used to examine ER target gene expression via RT-qPCR in 2 human hepatic cell lines transiently transfected with the ER isoform, ER alpha, prior to BPA exposure for various lengths of time. Within individual time points, there were no significant differences in target gene expression levels between cells that had been transfected with ER alpha and the vector control. Gene expression levels in the target genes were visibly increased at the 24-hour exposure mark in both transfection groups in comparison to the 0- and 6-hour time points, however only a fraction of these increases were found to be statistically significant. These gene expression patterns are not only consistent with previous studies examining target gene expression in BPA-treated hepatic cell lines, but more importantly, suggest BPA does not act via ER alpha to orchestrate the epigenetic changes seen in vitro. BPA may interact with a different ER isoform or an unknown target to create the observed “super promoters” at target genes, reinforcing the promiscuity of BPA and other xenoestrogens in facilitating epigenetic modifications, and ultimately, disease phenotypes.
Target gene expression levels and competition between transfected and endogenous microRNAs are strong confounding factors in microRNA high-throughput experiments