Altered signaling associated with chronic arsenic exposure in human skin keratinocytes

Modulation of signaling pathways upon chronic arsenic exposure remains poorly studied. Here, we carried out SILAC-based quantitative phosphoproteomics analysis to dissect the signaling induced upon chronic arsenic exposure in human skin keratinocyte cell line, HaCaT. We identified 4171 unique phosphosites derived from 2000 proteins. We observed differential phosphorylation of 406 phosphosites (twofold) corresponding to 305 proteins. Several pathways involved in cytoskeleton maintenance and organization were found to be significantly enriched (p<0.05). Our data revealed altered phosphorylation of proteins associated with adherens junction remodeling and actin polymerization. Kinases such as protein kinase C iota type (PRKCI), mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase 1 (MAP3K1), tyrosine-protein kinase BAZ1B (BAZ1B) and STE20 like kinase (SLK) were found to be hyperphosphorylated. Our study provides novel insights into signaling perturbations associated with chronic arsenic exposure in human skin keratinocytes. All MS/MS data have been deposited to the ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD004868.