ChIP assays showed that nicotine induced the binding of GATA4 or GATA6 to Sp1 on the α7-nAChR promoter, thereby inducing its transcription and increasing its levels in human SCC-L. Our data are clinically relevant because SCC-L patients smoked for decades before being diagnosed with cancer.
GATA-4 and -5 were also evaluated in microdissected samples of normal duct epithelium and cancer from pancreas cancer tissues which confirmed infrequent GATA-4 methylation in pancreatic cancers as well as in normal duct epithelium.
We examined GATA-4,-5 and -6 gene expression in established esophageal squamous cancer cell lines and the relationship to DNA methylation in the promoter region of these genes.