In this study we sought to define the repertoire of genes whose expression might be affected by FHC during the hemin-induced differentiation of the erythromyeloid cell line K562. To this aim, gene expression profiling was performed in four different sets of cells: i) wild type K562; ii) sh-RNA FHC-silenced K562; iii) hemin-treated wild-type K562; and iv) hemin-treated FHC-silenced K562. Statistical analysis of the gene expression data, performed by two-factor ANOVA, identified three distinct classes of transcripts: a) Class 1, including 657 mRNAs whose expression is modified exclusively during hemin-induced differentiation of K562 cells, independently from the FHC relative amounts; b) Class 2, containing a set of 70 mRNAs which are consistently modified by hemin and FHC-silencing; and c) Class 3, including 128 transcripts modified by FHC-silencing but not by hemin.
Our data indicate that FHC may function as a modulator of gene expression during erythroid differentiation and add new findings to the knowledge of the complex gene network modulated during erythroid differentiation.