Bioinformatics analysis of gene expression profiles in the rat cerebral cortex following traumatic brain injury.
BACKGROUND
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a serious neurodisorder commonly caused by sports related events or violence. It is the leading cause of disability in people under 40.


OBJECTIVE
In order to elucidate the molecular mechanism of the secondary injury after TBI.


METHODS
In this study, we downloaded gene expression profile on TBI model with sham controls for gene set enrichment analysis and pathway analysis.


RESULTS
At a q-value of 5%, 361 genes were up-regulated and 373 were down-regulated in samples obtained at 48 hours after TBI. Functional analyses revealed that steroid biosynthesis, cell cycle, metal ion transport, inflammation and apoptosis were significantly dysregulated during the late period after trauma. In addition, MAPK3 (mitogen-activated protein kinase 3), was identified as the hub node in the protein-protein interaction (PPI) network constructed by the differentially expressed genes (DEGs).


CONCLUSIONS
Further elucidation of genes and proteins in our study may reveal their potential as novel therapeutic targets.
Department of Anesthesiology, 2Department of Neurosurgery, General Hospital of Chengdu Military Command, Chengdu, Sichuan, P.R. China. euromountaingjw@hotmail.com.
S
S
Ou
G-D
GD
Liu
L-S
LS
Zhou
X
X
Xia
S-R
SR
Bai
J
J
Li
J
J
Cui
J-M
JM
Cheng
Y-M
YM
Li
X-Y
XY
Zhang
J-W
JW
Gu
D000818:Animals; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000235:genetics*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000378:metabolism*; D019295:Computational Biology; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D025941:Protein Interaction Mapping; D051381:Rats