Individual expression features of GPX2, NQO1 and SQSTM1 transcript variants induced by hydrogen peroxide treatment in HeLa cells

Pathway activity assessment-based approaches are becoming highly influential in various fields of biology and medicine. However, these approaches mostly rely on analysis of mRNA expression, and total mRNA from a given locus is measured in the majority of cases. Notably, a significant portion of protein-coding genes produces more than one transcript. This biological fact is responsible for significant noise when changes in total mRNA transcription of a single gene are analyzed. The NFE2L2/AP-1 pathway is an attractive target for biomedical applications. To date, there is a lack of data regarding the agreement in expression of even classical target genes of this pathway. In the present paper we analyzed whether transcript variants of GPX2, NQO1 and SQSTM1 were characterized by individual features of expression when HeLa cells were exposed to pro-oxidative stimulation with hydrogen peroxide. We found that all the transcripts (10 in total) appeared to be significantly individually regulated under the conditions tested. We conclude that individual transcripts, rather than total mRNA, are best markers of pathway activation. We also discuss here some biological roles of individual transcript regulation.