Gene expression profile of degenerated cervical intervertebral disc tissues in rats.
OBJECTIVE
To analyze the gene expression profile of degenerated cervical intervertebral disc of Sprague Dawley rats on a large scale.


METHODS
Degenerated models of Sprague Dawley rats of 9 months old (degeneration group, n=9) and normal Sprague Dawley rats of 3 months old (control group, n=9) were prepared, respectively. mRNA was obtained from the cervical intervertebral disc of rats in both groups, respectively, and then labelled by Cy5 and Cy3 fluorescence respectively after reverse transcription to obtain intervertebral disc cDNA probes. cDNA probes were hybridized with BiostarR-40s gene expression profile chips and scanned by laser scanner. The results were treated with portrait analysis, standardization management, and ratio analysis with softwares.


RESULTS
Compared with the rats in the control group, 9.6% (381 pieces in total) gene expression changed obviously in the rats in the degeneration group, among which, the gene expression quantities of 171 pieces increased significantly (r=the ratio of the degeneration group to the control group>2.0), 52 pieces of which had certain function. While the gene expression quantities of 211 pieces decreased significantly (r<0.5), 41 pieces of which had certain function.


CONCLUSIONS
Gene chip technology can be used to analyze the gene expression profile of degenerated intervertebral disc of rats in parallel, in quantity and on a large scale, which helps to testify the representative genes and protein expression, and plays an important role in clarifying the pathogenesis of degenerated intervertebral disc.
Wang
Yong-Jun
YJ
Research Institute of Spine, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai 200032, China. yjwang88@hotmail.com
Lu
Wei-Jia
WJ
Shi
Qi
Q
Zhou
Chong-Jian
CJ
Zhang
Qiang
Q
Zhou
Quan
Q
Bian
Qin
Q
Liu
Mei
M
Liang
Zhi-Ren
ZR
D000818:Animals; D002574:Cervical Vertebrae / Q000473:pathology; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D017403:In Situ Hybridization; D007403:Intervertebral Disc / Q000473:pathology; D007405:Intervertebral Disc Displacement / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley