Transcription factor recognition site analysis
The El Dorado (Build 35) program from the Genomatix software package was used to locate the correlated genes within the genome and define 1101 base pairs of the promoter regions (1000 base pairs upstream of and 100 base pairs into the transcription start site) for each gene (Genomatix Software GmbH, Munich, Germany, [17]). The 1101 base pair sequences obtained from the El Dorado program then were used as the target sequences for putative transcription factor recognition site identification using the MatInspector Version 4.2 program, which yielded sites for 11 transcription factors (Genomatix Software GmbH, Munich, Germany, [17]). The parameters used were the standard (0.75) core similarity and the optimized matrix similarity [18]. StaRT-PCR reagents were optimized for ten of these transcription factors, including CEBPB, CEBPE, CEBPG, E2F1, E2F3, E2F4, E2F5, E2F6, EVI1, and PAX5. Four transcription factors were expressed at low and invariant levels among multiple NBEC samples and were therefore excluded from the study. The remaining six, CEBPB, CEBPG, E2F1, E2F3, E2F6, and EVI, were evaluated for correlation with an expanded group of ten antioxidant and six DNA repair genes.