Osmosensitive gene expression of taurine transporter and cyclin C in embryonic fibroblast cells

Hypertonic conditions induce osmoregulatory activity. Molecular mechanism, however, remains to be further elucidated concerning the osmosensitive balancing activity. Using a differential display protocol, the genes of taurine transporter (TauT) and cyclin C were identified as candidate responding to the hypertonicity. When a quantitative PCR analysis was performed on the total RNA from KBEF cell treated under hypertonic conditions, the gene expressions of TauT and cyclin C were greatly increased. In terms of protein, the level of TauT expression increased up to 3.2-fold in response to the hypertonic treatment. Similarly to TauT, cyclin C protein also increased 2.4-fold compared to the control treatments. Under taurine-rich extracellular conditions, however, the level of TauT expression increased as little as 1.8-fold by hypertonicity treatment. Cyclin C expression was also lowered compared with low-taurine hypertonic treatment. Cysteine dioxygenase was shown to be highly responsive to the hypertonic treatment. Taken together, these results strongly indicate that the gene expressions of TauT and cyclin C are cooperatively regulated under hypotonic conditions.