The EGF Receptor Ligand Amphiregulin Controls Cell Division via FoxM1

We analyzed the effect of tetracycline (Tet)-inducible amphiregulin (AREG) silencing on the transcriptome of immortalized human N/TERT keratinocytes in the presence or absence of exogenous rhEGF. Tetracycline-mediated AREG silencing significantly altered the expression of 2,331 genes, 623 of which were not normalized towards normal by treatment with EGF. Genes irreversibly up-regulated by suppression of AREG overlapped with genes involved in keratinocyte differentiation. A significant proportion of the irreversibly down-regulated genes featured upstream binding sites recognized by FoxM1 Overall design: N/TERT-2G keratinocytes with tetracycline (Tet)-inducible expression of AREG shRNA were incubated for 60h in the presence (n=3) or absence of Tet (n=3) or with Tet and 20 ng/ml recombinant EGF (n=2).

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