title: Similar transcriptomic alterations in Cx43 knockdown and knockout astrocytes.
abstract: Previous findings of widespread transcriptomic alteration in tissues from connexin null mice raise the issue of whether the transcriptomic changes are directly due to connexin down-regulation or to "compensatory" developmental alterations for the missing gene. To start addressing this question, the authors compared with wild-type control the gene expression profiles of connexin 43 (Cx43) knockout and Cx43siRNA knockdown wild-type cortical astrocytes. Array analysis revealed remarkable parallelism of transcriptomic changes in knockout and knockdown astrocytes, with similarly altered genes being located on all chromosomes and encoding proteins involved in a wide diversity of cell functions. Moreover, gene expression variability was analogously higher in Cx43 null and siRNA-treated astrocytes, and expression interlinkages were similarly altered among a selected subset of genes. This highly significant overlap between transcriptomic alterations in Cx43 knockout and knockdown astrocytes suggests that the widespread changes more likely reflect connexin-dependent Gene Regulatory Networks rather than developmental compensation for the missing gene.
authors.affiliation: Dominick P Purpura Department of Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York 10461, USA. diacobas@aecom.yu.edu
authors.forename: Dumitru A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Iacobas
authors.forename: Sanda
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Iacobas
authors.forename: Marcia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Urban-Maldonado
authors.forename: Eliana
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Scemes
authors.forename: David C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Spray
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001253:Astrocytes / Q000378:metabolism*; D018031:Connexin 43 / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics*; D017629:Gap Junctions; D017353:Gene Deletion; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000502:physiology; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D018345:Mice, Knockout; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000096:biosynthesis*
chemical_list: D018031:Connexin 43; D012333:RNA, Messenger