Patent Application: US-200913121500-A

Abstract:
the present invention relates to a nucleic acid molecule being able to modulate the expression of the transient receptor potential cation channel , subfamily m , member 2 gene and to modulate apoptosis and uses thereof .

Description:
computational identification of antisense transcripts in melanoma . the antihunter software [ 9 , 10 ], capable of performing genome wide searches for antisense transcripts , was used for the identification of antisense ests from melanoma . antisense ests identified by the program were visualized in their genomic context using the ucsc genome browser ( http :// genome . ucsc . edu /), in order to prioritize for further analysis those showing expression enriched in cancer tissues . the melanoma cell lines mel ho , mel juso , mel ju , mel im and hmb2 were described previously [ 36 ], whereas the cell lines dettmel , gr4 , mal , mr255 , mr299 , mr304 and msr3 were from hospital san raffaele melanoma patient &# 39 ; s repository . the cell lines mel ho and mel juso were derived from primary cutaneous melanomas ; mel im , mel ju , hmb2 , dettmel , gr4 , mal , mr255 , mr299 , mr304 and msr3 were derived from metastases of malignant melanomas . cells and normal human epidermal melanocytes ( nhem ) were cultured as previously described [ 37 ]. tissue samples from primary human melanoma and melanoma metastasis obtained from patients undergoing surgical treatment were immediately snap frozen and stored at − 80 ° c . informed consent was obtained from all patients and investigations were according to institutional guidelines and to the declaration of helsinki principles . confluent cells ( 1 - 5 × 10 6 ) were trypsinised , pelleted and rna extracted with rneasy mini kit ( qiagen ) according to the manufacturer &# 39 ; s instructions . on column dnase digestion was performed with 80 μl of dnasei ( invitrogen ) for 40 minutes at room temperature . the eluted rnas were quantified with a nanodrop while their integrity was controlled on a 1 % agarose gel . subsequently cdnas were generated by a reverse - transcriptase reaction performed using the thermoscript rt - pcr system ( invitrogen ). briefly , 1 μg of total cellular rna , 1 μl of dntps ( 10 mmol / l ) and 1 μl of dn6 - primer ( 50 ng / μl ), were mixed and incubated for 5 minutes at 65 ° c . then , 1 μl of thermoscript reverse transcriptase , 4 μl of 5 × first strand buffer , 1 μl of 0 . 1 mol / l dtt , 1 μl of rnaseout ( 40 u / μl ), and sterile rnase - free water , were added to a 20 μl total reaction volume . in order to estimate the amount of genomic dna contamination in our preparations , each rna was used to produce a parallel rt - minus reaction where the rt - enzyme was substituted with water . reactions were incubated for 10 minutes at 25 ° c ., and the rnas were then transcribed for 1 hour at 55 ° c . subsequently , reverse transcriptase was inactivated at 85 ° c . for 5 minutes and rna was degraded by digestion with 1 μl of rnase h ( 2 u / μl ) at 37 ° c . for 20 minutes . cdnas were controlled by pcr amplification of beta - actin . human xg malignant melanoma ( a375 ) marathon - ready cdna ( clontech , mountain view , calif .) was used as template for pcr according to the manufacturer &# 39 ; s instructions . primer sequences are available on request . the largest - size pcr products were gel purified by the illustra ™ dna and gel band purification kit ( ge healthcare , buckinghamshire , uk ) and cloned into a pgem ®- t easy vector system ( promega ). individual clones were sequenced using the dyenamic et dye terminator kit ( amersham biosciences ). aliquots of 3 × 10 6 cells were lysed in 200 μl ripa - buffer ( roche ) and incubated for 15 min at 4 ° c . insoluble fragments were removed by centrifugation at 13 , 000 rpm for 10 minutes and the supernatant lysate was stored at − 20 ° c . for western blotting , 40 μg protein lysates were loaded and separated on 12 . 75 % sds - page gels and subsequently blotted onto a pvdf membrane ( biorad , hercules , calif ., usa ). after blocking for 1 hour with 3 % bsa / tbst ( 0 . 05 % tween ) the membrane was incubated for 16 hours at 4 ° c . with the primary antibodies [ polyclonal anti - trpm2 antibody generated by biogenes ( berlin , germany ), 1 : 2 , 000 ] and anti - beta - actin ( sigma , deisenhofen , germany , 1 : 2 , 500 )). the peptide sequence recognized by the trpm2 antibody reads as follows : mevykgymddprnt ( seq id no . 24 ). subsequently , the membrane was washed three times in tbst , incubated for 1 hour with alkaline phosphate - coupled secondary antibody ( chemicon ; 1 : 2 , 000 ) and then washed again . finally , immunoreactions were visualized by nbt / bcip ( sigma ) staining a panel of mel im cell clones with reduced trpm2 - te expression were established by stable transfection with an antisense expression plasmid ( base − 312 to + 18 relative to the atg codon cloned in antisense orientation into pcmx - pl1 ). mel im cell clones with induced trpm2 - fl expression were generated by stable transfection with a sense expression plasmid containing the coding sequence of trpm2 - fl from the translation start to the stop codon . plasmids were cotransfected with pcdna3 ( invitrogen ), containing the selectable marker for neomycin resistance . controls received pcdna3 alone . transfections were performed using lipofectamin plus ( invitrogen ) according to the manufacturer &# 39 ; s instructions . one day after transfection , cells were placed in selection medium containing 50 μg / ml g418 ( sigma ). after 25 days of selection , individual g418 - resistant colonies were subcloned . trpm2 - fl expression levels of these clones were checked in western blot and quantitative real - time pcr . cell proliferation was determined using the xtt assay ( roche , mannheim , germany ). apoptotic cells were detected by staining with annexinv - fits and propidium iodide using the annexinv kit ( caltag laboratories / invitrogen , karlsruhe , germany ) according to the manufacturer &# 39 ; s manual , stained cells were measured by flow cytometry with the bd facs calibur system ( bd biosciences , san jose , calif ., usa ). data were analyzed and histograms generated using the cellquest ™ software ( bd biosciences ). measurement of caspase activity was another assay used to detect rates of apoptosis . therefore cells were stained with caspace ™ fitc - vad - fmk in situ marker ( promega , usa ). 5 μm of caspace ™ fitc - vad - fmk in situ marker were added to the cell medium and cells were incubated for 20 minutes protected from light . after incubation , cells were washed with pbs twice and cell pellets were resuspended in 400 μl pbs before analyzing by flow cytometry . to enhance apoptosis , 2 × 10 4 cells were seeded into each well of a six - well plate and stimulated with 2 mm h 2 o 2 for 30 minutes before staining . to analyze the influence of the trpm2 - te iso form on apoptosis , the trpm2 - fl expressing cell clones were transiently transfected with an expression plasmid for trpm2 - te . for transient transfections , 2 × 10 4 cells were seeded into each well of a six - well plate and transfected with 0 . 5 μg trpm2 - te plasmid dna using the lipofectamine plus method ( invitrogen ) according to the manufacturer instructions . 24 h after transfection , cells were stimulated with 2 mm h 2 o 2 for 30 minutes and caspase activity was measured as described above . all experiments were performed at least three times . genomic dna was isolated and purified with trizol reagent ( invitrogen ) and quantified with a nanodrop . average 100 ng of each dna sample were subjected to bisulphite modification with the methyleasy kit ( human genetic signatures ) allowing the sulphonation reaction to proceed for no less than 8 hours at 55 ° c . following conversion , 3 μl of the modified dnas were pcr amplified with the primers cpg - 8u 5 ′- ttgatttgatttggtttttgga - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 3 ) and cpg - 8l 5 ′- caaaacaaaaacttcctctata - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 4 ) ( 1 ng / μl each ) in the presence of buffer 10 × ( qiagen ), dntps ( 2 mmol / l ), 5 × solution q ( qiagen ), taq dna polymerase ( 3u ), with the reaction conditions being : 1 minute of pre - incubation at 95 ° c ., then amplification reactions were performed by 35 repetitive cycles of denaturing for 1 minute at 95 ° c ., annealing for 2 minutes at 55 ° c . and extension for 2 minutes at 72 ° c . a semi - nested pcr reaction was performed in same conditions except for the forward primer changed to cpg - 1u 5 ′- tgtagattgtgtttgaatttggtta - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 5 ), using 4 μl of the previous 472 bp per product as template . the resulting 370 bp product was then gel - purified , cloned and sequenced using standard procedures . beta - actin ( exons 5 - 6 ) was amplified from cdnas using the specific primers : lc + hbactin - u 5 ′- tcctcctggagaagagcta - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 6 ) and lc + hbactin - l 5 ′- ggatgccacaggactccat - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 7 ) coupled to human universal probe library ( upl ) probe number 11 ( roche ) resulting in a 124 bp fragment . trpm2 - fl ( exons 20 - 21 ) was amplified by rt - pcr from cdnas using the specific primers : rch_long_trpm2_u 5 ′- acctcctcatcgccatgtt - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 8 ) and rch_long_trpm2_l 5 ′- cttccaaatctggtccgtgt - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 9 ) coupled to human upl probe number 11 , resulting in a 68 bp fragment . trpm2 - as ( exons 1 - 2 ) was amplified by rt - pcr from cdnas using the specific primers : rch - asmel - 1f 5 ′- ccaggaaccagaaccaaact - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 10 ) and rch - asmel - 1r 5 ′- tgtccgtctgctgagacatc - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 11 ) coupled to human upl probe number 57 , resulting in a 61 bp fragment . trpm2 - te was amplified from cdnas using the primers : upl - tss - u 5 ′- gatgttttggcggaaggac - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 12 ) and upl - tss - rev 5 ′- caggaagacgtgacgcaag - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 13 ) coupled to human upl probe number 6 , resulting in a 88 bp intronless fragment . the contribution of genomic dna contamination to the detected signal was subtracted by running a parallel real - time quantification from a rt - minus reaction , where the rt - enzyme was substituted with water . when rna was not available to perform the rt - minus control , the contribution of dna contamination to the detected signal was subtracted by performing a real - time quantification on the same samples , using a couple of primers specific for the beta - actin promoter : lc - probact - u1 5 ′- tctgcaggagcgtacagaac - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 14 ) and lc - probact - l1 5 ′- acatctcttgggcactgagc - 3 ′ ( seq id no . 15 ) coupled to human upl probe number 81 ( roche ) resulting in a 85 bp fragment . real time pcr reactions were performed on a lightcycler 480 instrument ( roche ), on 96 multiwell plates ( roche ) using lightcycler 480 probemaster mix ( roche ) following the manufacturer instructions . briefly , all reactions were performed in a final 30 μl volume containing 15 μl of 2 × mastermix , 0 . 6 μl of each primer ( 20 μmol / l ), 0 . 3 μl of the corresponding upl probe ( 10 μmol / l ), and 10 μl of template cdna . only for trpm2 - as the reaction was supplemented with 6 μl of 5 × solution - q ( qiagen ) and the cdna template lowered to 7 μl . the resulting mix was pre - incubated for 10 minutes at 95 ° c ., then amplification reactions were performed by 45 repetitive cycles of denaturing for 10 seconds at 95 ° c ., annealing for 15 seconds at 58 ° c . and a final extension plus single acquisition step at 72 ° c . for 1 second . levels of target gene transcripts were normalized to transcript levels of a reference gene ( beta - actin ) and calculated using a relative quantification model with efficiency correction . amplification efficiency of primer pairs was calculated from serial dilutions of a representative cdna template over a concentration range of 3 log orders . two sirnas designed to target the trpm2 - as transcript ( trpm2 - as — 657 and trpm2 - as — 734 ), one sirna designed to target the trpm2 - te transcript ( trpm2 - te — 55 ) and a control ( non - specific ) sirna were synthesized by mwg biotech ( germany ) as follows : 1 ) trpm2 - as — 657 , 5 ′- ccaguaacuccgcccaaau ( dtdt )- 3 ′, ( seq id no . 16 ) target sequence starting at nt 657 of trpm2 - as . 2 ) trpm2 - as — 734 , 5 ′- ccacuuacucauccaagaa ( dtdt )- 3 ′, ( seq id no . 17 ) target sequence starting at nt 734 of trpm2 - as . 3 ) trpm2 - te — 55 , 5 ′- gaaggaccacagaggaagu ( dtdt )- 3 ′, ( seq id no . 18 ) target sequence starting at nt 55 of trpm2 - te . 4 ) non - specific , 5 ′- agguaguguaaucgccuug ( dtdt )- 3 ′, ( seq id no . 19 ) no known target in the human transcriptome . all sirna sequences were subjected to blast search to confirm the absence of similarity to any known additional transcript in the human genome . sirnas were transfected in the human melanoma cell line mel im using the transfection reagent lipofectamine rnaimax from invitrogen . final sirna concentration in the medium was 10 nm . cell were harvested for rna extraction at 24 hours . qpcr were performed to measure the relative amount of trpm2 - as , trpm2 - te and trpm2 - fl transcripts . apoptosis was measured after a 72 h transfection with any of the following sirna : trpm2 - as — 657 , trpm2 - as — 734 , trpm2 - te — 55 or the non - specific sirna . early and late apoptotic cells were assessed by flow cytometry using the annexin v - fitc apoptosis detection kit ( immunostep , salamanca , spain ), following manufacturer &# 39 ; s instructions . data acquisition and analysis were done in a facsort cytometer ( becton dickinson , franklin lakes , n . j .) using cellquest and fcs express software . de - novodna methylation of the cpg island located between trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te transcripts . three phosphorothioate oligonucleotides were designed in which the cytosines in cpg dinucleotides were replaced by m 5 cpg . these oligonucleotides are all from the cpg island within the trpm2 gene ( genomic coordinates : chromosome 21 : 44669421 - 44670121 , ncbi build 35 ) and were meant to induce methylation within this targeted region using the metod developed by yao et al . [ 34 ]. 1 ) methylated oligonucleotide 1 ( mo1 ): m cgg m cgggga m cgctgcctgagctcc m cg ( seq id no . 20 ) at genomic coordinates chr 21 : 44669769 - 44669794 , ncbi build 35 ). 2 ) methylated oligonucleotide 2 ( mo2 ): ccct m cgtaac m cgcactg m cgagttc ( seq id no . 21 ) at genomic coordinates chr21 : 44669697 - 44669720 , ncbi build 35 ). 3 ) methylated oligonucleotide 3 ( m03 ): tgc m cgggctgctgagttt m cgc m cggc ( seq id no . 22 ) at genomic coordinates chr21 : 44669657 - 44669678 , ncbi build 35 ). 4 ) s01 is identical at mo1 except that it doesn &# 39 ; t contain m 5 c residues as mo1 . 5 ) mos is random , i . e ., it is not significantly related to the any sequence in the human genome , but contains 3 m 5 cpg residues and has a base composition similar to mo1 , mo2 and mo3 : tcct m cgggctgctgagttt m cgc m cggccc ( seq id no . 23 ). the oligonucleotides were purchased from mwg ( germany ). the oligonucleotides were purified by high - performance liquid chromatography yielding a purity of more than 95 % of full - length oligonucleotides . tumor cells were seeded in six - well plates at a density of 2 × 10 5 cells / ml and were treated with the following liposome - encapsulated oligonucleotide mixes at a final concentration of 3 μm : a ) mo1 + mo2 + mo3 ( mixture of the three oligonucleotides with each oligonucleotide having a final 1 μm concentration ). b ) so1 c ) mos cells were harvested after 24 hours of transfection . dna was extracted and the methylation status of the cpg island was checked after 24 hours as previously described . results are expressed as mean ± sd ( range ) or percent . comparison between groups was made using the student &# 39 ; s unpaired t - test . a p value & lt ; 0 . 05 was considered statistically significant . all calculations were performed using the graphpad prism software ( graphpad software inc , san diego , usa ). for real time pcr , data analysis was performed using the relative expression software tool ( rest 2005 beta v1 . 9 . 12 ) [ 38 ]. *, p & lt ; 0 . 05 ; **, p & lt ; 0 . 01 . in silico identification of novel sense - antisense transcription at the trpm2 locus . using a newly developed version of our antihunter software , the authors performed a genome - wide search for antisense transcripts expressed in human ests ( expressed sequence tags ) from melanoma . several antisense transcripts scattered throughout the genome were identified ( data not shown ) and here the authors describe one of them , named trpm2 - as , mapped on chromosome 21 . trpm2 - as is antisense with respect to trpm2 , an ion channel capable of conferring cell - death upon oxidative stress . antihunter identified two melanoma antisense ests , bf689755 and bf690298 , located in the body of the trpm2 gene and both corresponding to trpm2 - as . the trpm2 locus and the relevant molecules herein described are schematically represented in fig1 ( numbering refers to the ncbi build 36 . 1 ( march 2006 )). in order to confirm that the transcription start site and the 3 ′- end of the ests were accurate , the authors performed 5 ′- and 3 ′- rapid amplification of cdna ends ( race ) using a commercially available cdna from malignant melanoma . as a result , it was possible to extend the 5 ′ end of trpm2 - as by 292 bases , whereas the 3 ′ end matched closely that of est bf689755 . the genomic span of the extended trpm2 - as 875 nucleotides transcript ( genbank accession number : eu362988 , seq id no . 1 ) was 10 , 974 bp , ranging from position 44 , 658 , 901 to position 44 , 669 , 874 : a 701 bp cpg island , partially superimposed to the trpm2 - as transcript , was mapped at coordinates 44 , 669 , 421 - 44 , 670 , 121 by the “ cpgplot ” program from the emboss package ( www . emboss . org ). a prediction for a 570 bp dna segment containing a polii promoter was made within the cpg island ( coordinates 44 , 669 , 484 - 44 , 670 , 053 ) by “ first - ef ”, a first - exon and promoter prediction program for human dna [ 22 ], suggesting the cpg island could be involved in the transcriptional regulation of trpm2 - as ( fig1 ). intriguingly , when visualizing the locus in a genomic browser , five ests from prostate carcinoma , bq958319 , bq887469 , bu543741 , bm046691 and bq920435 , appeared to be possibly transcribed from the same cpg island / polii promoter , ( only a representative one , bc041570 , is shown for this group of ests in the upper part of fig1 ). their transcription start site appeared to be located within intron 24 of the trpm2 gene . in order to precisely map the 5 ′- and the 3 ′- ends of this transcript ( named tumor enriched trpm2 , herein trpm2 - te ), the authors performed another race experiment using cdna from malignant melanoma . the 5 ′- end of trpm2 - te was shown to expand by 22 bases with respect to est bq958319 , whereas the 3 ′- end was mapped in canonical position with respect to trpm2 full - length transcript ( herein trpm2 - fl ). as a result , trpm2 - te mrna transcript was determined to be 2 , 138 nucleotides long ( genbank accession number : eu362987 ), seq id no . 2 : the transcript spans a genomic region of 17 , 553 nucleotides from position 44 , 669 , 840 to position 44 , 687 , 392 . sequencing of the trpm2 - te transcript revealed other interesting features . it lacked part of exon 26 and the entire exon 27 . removal of part of exon 26 does not affect the putative protein product , as the first methionine is positioned downstream ( see below ), whereas the ablation of exon 27 corresponds to the already described trpm2 - ac splice variant [ 23 ]. the resulting deletion of 34 amino acids removes part of the nudix domain and it has been reported to impair the capability of trpm2 - fl to be activated by adp - ribose ( adpr , [ 23 ]). however , it leaves intact the segment showing similarity to the core region of the nudt9 domain , containing all the structure required for adprase activity [ 24 ]. the predicted trpm2 - te - ac open reading frame ranged from nucleotide 320 to nucleotide 874 , encoding for a 184 amino acid protein , whose predicted molecular size is 21 , 083 da . the full length trpm2 - te isoform without the δc deletion encoded for a protein of 218 amino acids , with a predicted molecular mass of 25 , 012 da . a schematic representation of trpm2 - te protein products , compared to trpm2 - fl , is shown in fig2 . interestingly , as shown in fig1 , all five ests from prostate carcinoma displayed these same structural features , suggesting their possible association to cancer . however , selective amplification of the trpm2 - te - ac region from several melanoma samples revealed the co - existence of a mixed population of trpm2 - te molecules , both with and without the ac deletion in the same cell line ( data not shown ). the authors analyzed trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te expression levels in 12 melanoma cell lines and five tumor tissues , with the cell line mal being the immortalized counterpart of the fresh tumor # 3 ( ft3 ). as a control , the authors used normal melanocytes from two independent healthy donors , nhem1 and nhem2 . the expression level of these two transcripts was also measured in eight normal tissues : heart , brain , placenta , lung , liver , skeletal muscle , kidney and pancreas . results are shown in fig3 a and fig3 b , respectively . both molecules appeared to be up - regulated in over 80 % of the cancer samples analyzed , with little or no detectable expression in melanocytes . the eight normal tissues analyzed displayed mostly low levels of these two transcripts . interestingly , the level of up - regulation of both trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te molecules was similar in several of the tumor samples analyzed , suggesting a common mechanism of transcriptional regulation ( see below ). it should be noted that the mal cell line displayed significantly lower levels of both trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te transcripts with respect to the corresponding fresh tumor sample , ft3 . this indicates that quantification experiments performed in cell lines , especially after a high number of passages , might underestimate the level of up - regulation of these two molecules . the expression level of trpm2 - fl was also measured in the same samples . results are shown in fig3 c . in this case , trpm2 - fl expression was detectable , albeit mostly at low levels , both in melanocytes and in 11 out 12 melanoma cell lines . strikingly , a much higher trpm2 - fl expression was instead observed in all tumor tissues vs . the melanoma cell lines . this discrepancy could be explained by the fact that fresh tumors are often infiltrated by immune cells , which are known to express fairly high levels of trpm2 - fl [ 13 ]. alternatively , it is possible that immortalized cell lines have somehow selected against the capability to express high levels of trpm2 - fl , possibly owing to the proapoptotic nature of this gene [ 19 - 21 ]. methylation status of the shared cpg island correlates with the expression levels of trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te transcripts . the authors tried to ascertain if the degree of methylation of the cpg island shared by trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te was correlated with the transcriptional activation of these two molecules in melanoma . for this purpose , seven dnas from the samples analyzed in fig3 were treated with sodium - bisulphite to convert cytosine residues to uracil in single - stranded dna , under conditions whereby methylated cytosines remain essentially non - reactive . primers were designed to pcr - amplify a region at coordinates 74 - 369 of the predicted cpg island . this region contains 19 cpg dinucleotides , whose methylation status was determined after cloning and sequencing of at least 8 clones . the results are shown in fig4 . obvious differences in the methylation patterns of poorly expressing trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te samples , namely nhem1 and nhem2 , vs . relatively strong - expressing cells lines , i . e ., mel juso , mr299 , dettmel , msr3 and mel im , were detected , suggesting that the methylation status of the cpg island contributes negatively to the expression level of both trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te . to analyze the functional role of trpm2 - te in melanoma cells , the authors down - regulated its expression in melanoma cell line mel im by stable transfection with a trpm2 - te antisense expression construct . successful down - regulation of trpm2 - te in cell clones 1 and 2 ( trpm2 - te - as 1 , trpm2 - te - as 2 ) was verified by quantitative rt - pcr ( fig5 a ) and western blot analysis ( fig5 b ). as a side effect , the level of trpm2 - fl was reduced by this treatment , as shown in fig5 c . however , as expected , the knock - out effect was certainly much more efficient for trpm2 - te than for the trpm2 - fl isoform . therefore , the authors went on to analyze the amount of apoptosis in cell clones with down - regulated trpm2 - te expression as well as in control cells . without stimulation , trpm2 - te - as 1 and trpm2 - te - as 2 showed a higher level of apoptotic and necrotic cells compared to mock control cells , as shown in fig5 d . stimulation with h 2 o 2 enhanced this effect ( data not shown ). overexpression of trpm2 - fl reduces melanoma proliferation rate and increases its caspase activity . the authors generated melanoma cell clones which expressed higher trpm2 - fl levels than parental cells by stable transfection of mel im cells with an expression construct for trpm2 - fl . over - expression was tested by quantitative rt - pcr revealing that the cell clones 3 and 7 had a strongly increased expression of trpm2 - fl when compared to mock - transfected cell clones mock 1 and mock 2 ( fig6 a ). cells expressing high levels of trpm2 - fl showed reduced proliferation compared to mock transfected cells and mel im cells ( fig6 b ). these results are consistent with the analysis of the amount of apoptotic cells ( data not shown ). strikingly , while clone 3 had greater expression than clone 7 , there is no difference between these two clones in terms of proliferation rate . this is probably due to the fact that the capability to slow down cell proliferation via fl_trpm2 has been already saturated by the expression level reached using clone 7 . therefore , a further increase of fl_trpm2 cellular concentration , such as that obtained using clone 3 , doesn &# 39 ; t bring any further decrease in the proliferation rate . trpm2 - fl expressing cell clones had higher levels of caspase activity compared to mel im cells and mock - transfected cell clones . this effect could be intensified by stimulating cells with h 2 o 2 ( fig6 c ). transient transfection of the trpm2 - fl cell clone 3 with a trpm2 - te expression plasmid protected cells from apoptosis . this effect was even stronger after stimulating cells with h 2 o 2 , as shown in fig6 d . in order to investigate the possibility that overexpression of trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te transcripts is a wider phenomenon in cancer , quantitative rt - pcr experiments were performed on other tumor types . in fig7 , four matched neoplastic / non - neoplastic lung tissue ( lt ) samples , with the normal tissue adjacent to the tumor , namely lt1_n and lt1_t , lt2_n and lt2_t , lt3_n and lt3_t , lt4_n and lt4_t , were analyzed . results are shown as fold induction with respect to a lung cdna from an independent healthy donor . tumor samples displayed higher levels of trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te transcripts with respect to their matched normal tissue . interestingly , lt2 tissue sample , showing the highest trpm2 - te levels among the cancer samples analyzed , also displayed high levels of this transcript in its healthy counterpart , suggesting the possibility that the spreading of tumor cells had already occurred in the ostensibly healthy tissue . expression analysis of trpm2 - as , trpm2 - te and trpm2 - fl transcripts in resected non - small cell lung cancer patients revealed that trpm2 - as was over - expressed in 17 samples ( 63 %), under - expressed in 9 samples ( 33 %) and equally expressed in one sample ( 4 %). trpm2 - te was over - expressed in 24 samples ( 89 %), under - expressed in 2 samples ( 7 %) and equally expressed in one sample ( 4 %). trpm2 - fl was over - expressed in 9 samples ( 33 %), under - expressed in 13 ( 48 %) samples and equally expressed in 5 samples ( 18 %) ( fig8 ). these results demonstrate that expression levels of trpm2 - as allow to discriminate between normal lung tissue and lung cancer in 63 % of cases ( 0 % false positives ). moreover , expression levels of trpm2 - te allow to discriminate between normal lung tissue and lung cancer in 89 % of cases ( 0 % false positives ). it is conceivable that trpm2 - te and trpm2 - as exert their function by counteracting the action of trpm2 - fl within the cell . therefore , since the overall capability of trpm2 - fl to induce cell death could be affected by the amounts of these two molecules , the authors calculated the following value for each sample from the fold induction data : trpm2 - fl - trpm2 - as - trpm2 - te . this means that this new value , named trpm2 - fl relative fold induction ( trfi ), is calculated by subtracting the figure of trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te fold induction from the trpm2 - fl one . in order to keep in account saturating concentration of these molecules in the cell , the fold induction values used for calculation were kept within the −/+ 10 - fold range . for example , from fig8 , the fold induction of trpm2 - as , trpm2 - te ad trpm2 - fl in lc1 — 1a samples is , respectively , the following : − 3 . 76 , 6 . 32 and − 3 . 32 . this yields a trfi of − 5 . 88 . another example : sample lc12 — 1b has undetectable levels of trpm2 - as ( equated to − 10 ), a fold induction of 292 . 87 times of trpm2 - as ( equated to + 10 ) and − 1 . 93 times for trpm2 - fl . the resulting trfi is − 1 . 93 . the trfi was calculated for all the lung cancer samples . in table i , lung cancer samples from stage i and ii are sorted on the base of the overall survival ( os ) of respective patients expressed in month . the average trfi of short term survival patients ( 0 - 30 months , dark grey boxes ) differs from the one of long term survival patients ( 31 - 88 months , light grey boxes ): − 17 . 41 vs . − 8 . 77 . a t - test applied to the trfi values of both distributions determined that this difference was significant ( p - value : 6 . 57e - 08 ). no significant difference was found in stage 3 samples ( data not shown ). tumor stage ( ts ), overall surviving ( os ) after surgery and whether patient was still living after the end of the clinical follow - up is also shown in the table . this data demonstrate that the trfi value is a significant prognostic marker in lung cancer . the month survival of patients from stage i and stage ii having a trfi & lt ;− 10 ( dotted line ; n = 11 ; average survival : 29 months ) and a trfi & gt ;− 10 ( solid line ; n = 7 ; average survival : 67 months ) was plotted in a kaplan - meyer survival plot in fig9 . a log - rank test determined the significance of these different distribution ( p - value : 0 . 001 ). quantitative rt - pcr experiments were also performed to quantify trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te transcripts in both normal ( hb100 , mcf - 10 ) and breast cancer cell lines ( mdamb231 , mdamb453 , mdamb468 , t47d , bt20 , zr751 , mda435 , bt474 , mcf7 ). results are displayed as arbitrary units in fig1 a and fig1 b , respectively . quantification of trpm2 - as revealed that it was undetectable in the two healthy controls , as well as in mdamb231 , mdamb453 , zr751 and mcf7 breast cancer cell lines . however , its expression was clearly upregulated in the remaining five breast cancer cell lines ( 55 %), with the highest and lowest values observed in mda435 and mdamb468 cell lines . expression analysis of trpm2 - te transcript showed that it was undetectable in the healthy mcf - 10 cell line as well as in the mdamb231 breast cancer cell line . it had a moderate expression in both normal hb100 and low - invasiveness mda - mb - 468 cell lines [ 25 ] and was significantly upregulated in all of the remaining 7 cell lines ( 77 %). also , the highest and lowest expression values in the tumor cell lines were found in the mda435 and mdamb468 cell lines , respectively . sirnas targeting trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te transcripts down - regulate their expression in melanoma cells sirnas experiments , shown in fig1 , were designed to target the trpm2 - as transcript or the trpm2 - te transcript . they showed that , respect to mock - transfected cells , trpm2 - as — 657 sirna was able to ablate 69 % of trpm2 - as expression , trpm2 - as — 734 was able to knock - out 75 % of trpm2 - as expression , whereas trpm2 - te — 55 was able to remove 56 % of trpm2 - te molecules . interestingly , these three sirna had a cross inhibitory effect : trpm2 - as — 657 removed also 84 % of trpm2 - te molecules , trpm2 - as — 734 removed also 70 % of trpm2 - te transcripts , whereas trpm2 - te 55 remove 30 % of trpm2 - as rna . no significant down - regulation of trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te transcripts was observed when transfecting cells with a non - specific sirna . these results demonstrate that the above sirnas can properly abolish trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te expression . such decreased expression induces an increased apoptosis in melanoma cells , as shown in fig1 ( see figure legend for details ). therefore inhibition of trpm2 - as and / or trpm2 - te expression can be used to inhibit tumour cells . the inhibition can be performed by means of sirna technology or any other means known in the art . de - novo methylation of the cpg island located between trpm2 - as and trmp2 - te transcripts following the protocol of yao et al [ 34 ], the authors designed three methylated oligonucleotides aimed at inducing new methylation in melanoma cells of the cpg island located in between trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te transcripts . three methylated oligonucleotides , mon1 , mon2 and mon3 , targeting the cpg island were designed . two negative control oligonucleotides , so1 and mos , were designed as well . the first of these two control oligonucleotides , so1 , had the same sequence of mo1 , but it was completely not - methylated . the second control oligo , mos , was not significantly related to any sequence in the human genome . oligonucleotides were transfected in melanoma mel im cells . after 24 hours , dna was extracted and treated with sodium bisulphite to convert cytosine residues to uracil in single - stranded dna , under conditions whereby methylated cytosines remain essentially non - reactive . as previously described , primers were used to pcr - amplify the region at coordinates 74 - 369 of the predicted cpg island , containing 19 cpg dinucleotides , whose methylation status was determined after cloning and sequencing of 5 clones . the results are shown in fig1 , with open (∘) and closed () circles indicating , respectively , non - methylated and methylated cpg sites . as a result , the mix of the three methylated oligonucleotides partially methylated 3 out of 5 clones , whereas non - methylation was induced both by the so1 and the mos control oligonucleotides . in the study presented here , the authors mined the est melanoma database with their recently developed software antihunter and identified a new antisense transcript , trpm2 - as . natural antisense transcripts ( nats ) are supposed to negatively regulate the conjugated sense transcript by means of a variety of regulatory mechanisms [ 9 ]. the sense partner of trpm2 - as is trpm2 , a gene whose protein product encodes for an ion channel capable of conferring cell - death upon oxidative stress . although the direct involvement of trpm2 in tumor cell death has been shown only very recently [ 21 ], the authors contemplated that activation of trpm2 - as could interfere with the proapoptotic role of trpm2 during the process of cancerogenesis . quantitative rt - pcr experiments revealed transcriptional activation of trpm2 - as in about 80 % of melanoma cell lines and tumor tissues vs . controls . visualization of the antihunter output , using a genome browser , allowed the authors to hint at other interesting features of the investigated region . first , a cpg island / pol ii promoter , mapped within intron 24 of trpm2 , appeared to be closely positioned to the trpm2 - as transcription start site . second , five ests from prostate carcinoma appeared to have a transcription start site located within the same intron 24 , suggesting the cpg island could serve also as a promoter for a new tumor enriched trpm2 transcript ( trpm2 - te ). quantitative rt - pcr experiments showed that trpm2 - te expression was activated in melanoma and coupled to the expression of trpm2 - as suggesting a bidirectional role for the shared promoter region . sequencing of bisulphite treated dnas of several melanoma samples indicated the methylation status of the cpg island was at least partially correlated with the expression levels of trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te transcripts . since this cpg island appeared to be mostly hypermethylated in normal melanocytes , it is conceivable that its demethylation could activate trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te expression in melanoma , contributing to the functional downregulation of trpm2 - fl . no obvious indication on the regulatory role of trpm2 - as over fl - trpm2 could be determined by the qpcr data shown in fig3 a and fig3 c . however , as trpm2 - fl activity depends also on the strength of its own promoter , the effect of trpm2 - as expression on its transcription could be not easily detected by this experiment . several mechanisms involved in the regulation of a sense transcript by its antisense partner have already been described ( reviewed in [ 9 , 26 - 30 ]): 1 ) transcriptional interference ; 2 ) rna masking ; 3 ) double - stranded rna ( dsrna )- dependent mechanisms and 4 ) antisense rna - mediated cpg island methylation . intriguingly , a recent paper describes the epigenetic silencing of the tumor suppressor gene p15 by its antisense rna through heterochromatin formation , but not dna methylation [ 31 ]. in the present case , direct sequencing of several trpm2 - fl cdnas failed to detect any deamination ( a to i conversion ) in the region encompassing exons 21 - 24 , i . e ., those overlapped by the primary trpm2 - as transcript ( data not shown ), which suggests that rna editing is unlikely to occur . since primer extension experiments mapped the trpm2 - as 3 ′- end in the body of the trpm2 - fl gene , about 60 kb apart from its 5 ′- end , then antisense rna - mediated cpg island methylation can be excluded . experimental evidence for the dominant - negative role of trpm2 - te was determined by the present invention experiments . knock - down of this transcript significantly increased the susceptibility of melanoma cells to apoptosis and necrosis . since the present experimental approach to trpm2 - te depletion also removed a significant fraction of trpm2 - fl from the cells ( see fig5 b ), the dominant negative role of trpm2 - te could have been underestimated by the present experiments . according to the above functional data , overexpression of trpm2 - fl in melanoma cell clones interfered with some traits of the tumoral phenotype leading to an increased doubling time in proliferation assays as well as higher caspase activity . along the same lines , transient overexpression of trpm2 - te in the trpm2 - fl over - expressing cell clones protected these cells from apoptosis , suggesting that restoration of trpm2 - fl activity in melanoma cells could contribute to shift them toward a less aggressive state and / or apoptosis . thus , trpm2 - te inhibits the function of trpm2 - fl . other truncated iso forms of trpm2 - fl have already been shown to work as dominant negative [ 17 , 32 ]. alternatively , or in adjunct , since trpm2 - te maintains the core portion of the nudix domain required for adprase activity ( see fig3 ), it might simply work by sequestering / consuming the cellular supply of adpr needed for trpm2 activation . rnai experiment presented in this invention further demonstrated the anti - apoptotic role of trpm2te molecule . they also indicated the anti - apoptotic role of trpm2 - as transcript . quantitative rt - pcr experiments performed in lung and breast cancer ( fig7 and fig1 ), seem to support the idea that activation of trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te transcripts is a phenomenon common to other tumors . a large sequencing effort directed toward human colorectal and breast cancer dna gene coding regions and splicing consensi failed to find any mutation within trpm2 - fl [ 2 ]. therefore , it is conceivable that trpm2 - fl inactivation in cancer is mainly obtained by epigenetic means , such as those described in the present invention . a possible explanation is that trpm2 - fl function could be needed in the initial phases of tumor development , while becoming harmful at later stages . accordingly , since metastasis is a cellular heterogeneous process , it is unlikely to be mediated by permanent genetic mutations . however , epigenetically mediated gene silencing is an excellent candidate for supporting such cellular dynamics [ 33 ]. the kind of epigenetic regulation is shown here to allow the fine tuning of the trpm2 - fl requirements of the tumor by acting on the methylation status of the inner cpg island . another important player in this scenario should be the promoter of the trpm2 - fl gene , whose activation strength should also contribute to the functional activity of trpm2 - fl . from the data reported in the present invention , restoration of trpm2 - fl activity in cancer cells is an attractive therapeutic opportunity . since inactivation of trpm2 - fl is likely to correlate with the hypomethylation of the cpg island shared by trpm2 - as and trpm2 - te transcripts , a simple way to restore its activity is to artificially methylate it de novo . experimental evidence indicates the feasibility of this approach , obtained by delivering a methylated oligonucleotide complementary to the targeted cpg island to the nucleus [ 34 ]. the authors delivered a methylated oligonucleotide to the shared cpg island with positive results , as shown in fig1 . the systematic identification of antisense transcripts in the est database holds great promise for the identification of new and interesting biological and pathological phenomena . with the advent of new sequencing technologies that generate order - of - magnitudes larger sequencing data at fractional costs [ 35 ], it is conceivable that the identification of regulatory antisense transcripts obtained by mining the est database will gain even more ground in the future . 1 . vogelstein b , kinzler k w . nat med . 2004 ; 10 : 789 - 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