Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is an important reactive oxygen species that plays a major role in redox signaling. Although H2O2 is known to regulate gene expression and affect multiple cellular processes, the characteristics and mechanisms of such transcriptional regulation remain to be defined. In this study, we utilized transcriptome sequencing to determine the global changes of mRNA and lncRNA transcripts induced by H2O2 in human pancreatic normal epithelial (HPNE) and pancreatic cancer (PANC-1) cells. Promoter analysis using PROMO and TRRUST revealed that mRNAs and lncRNAs largely shared the same sets of transcription factors in response to ROS stress. Interestingly, promoters of the upregulated genes were similar to those of the downregulated transcripts, suggesting that the H2O2-responding promoters are conserved but they alone do not determine the levels of transcriptional outputs. We also found that H2O2 induced significant changes in molecules involved in the pathways of RNA metabolism, processing, and transport. Detailed analyses further revealed a significant difference between pancreatic cancer and noncancer cells in their response to H2O2 stress, especially in the transcription of genes involved in cell-cycle regulation and DNA repair. Our study provides new insights into RNA transcriptional regulation upon ROS stress in cancer and normal cells.
Keywords: PROMO; TRRUST; hydrogen peroxide; lncRNA; reactive oxygen species; transcription factors.