Figure 4

Glutathione-based chiral gold nanoclusters regulate gene expression associated with 5hmC and TET.

MGC-803 cells were treated with indicated concentrations of AuNCs@L-GSH and AuNCs@D-GSH for 12 h, the cells cultured in normal media were denoted as control group. (a) Heat-map for Gene Expression Array of cells treated with 100 μg/mL AuNCs@L-GSH and AuNCs@D-GSH. (b) Pathway analysis based on KEGG of significantly altered genes after treatment with AuNCs@L-GSH and AuNCs@D-GSH. (c) qRT-PCR of relative TET mRNA levels for AuNCs@L-GSH treated samples comparing to control. ACTB (beta-actin) was served as a reference gene. Data are expressed as mean ± SEM. Statistical comparisons between groups were conducted by one-way ANOVA followed by a Newman-Keuls comparison test. P-values were shown in the figure. *indicates p < 0.05; **indicates p < 0.01; ***indicates p < 0.001. The value of p < 0.05 was considered to be significant. (d) Venn diagram shows the intersectional genes associated with 5hmC, TET1 and TET2 from relevant database and gene chips for AuNCs@L-GSH treated samples. Databases refer to the gene chip data from references containing 5hmC related differentially expressed genes³⁵ (NCBI GEO accessions: GSE38118) combined with TET related genes³⁶ (NCBI GEO accessions: GSE50198 and GSE50200). (e) qRT-PCR to validate the gene expression changes in (a).