title: Gene expression profile analysis of human intervertebral disc degeneration.
abstract: In this study, we used microarray analysis to investigate the biogenesis and progression of intervertebral disc degeneration. The gene expression profiles of 37 disc tissue samples obtained from patients with herniated discs and degenerative disc disease collected by the National Cancer Institute Cooperative Tissue Network were analyzed. Differentially expressed genes between more and less degenerated discs were identified by significant analysis of microarray. A total of 555 genes were significantly overexpressed in more degenerated discs with a false discovery rate of < 3%. Functional annotation showed that these genes were significantly associated with membrane-bound vesicles, calcium ion binding and extracellular matrix. Protein-protein interaction analysis showed that these genes, including previously reported genes such as fibronectin, COL2A1 and β-catenin, may play key roles in disc degeneration. Unsupervised clustering indicated that the widely used morphology-based Thompson grading system was only marginally associated with the molecular classification of intervertebral disc degeneration. These findings indicate that detailed, systematic gene analysis may be a useful way of studying the biology of intervertebral disc degeneration.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, Changhai Hospital affiliated to the Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, China .
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Dajiang
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Xiaodong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Haijian
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ni
authors.forename: Xianzhao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: Ningfang
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mao
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Yunfei
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Niu
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Li
keywords: genes; intervertebral disc degeneration; molecular classification; protein-protein interaction