title: Understanding the aristolochic acid toxicities in rat kidneys with regulatory networks.
abstract: The natural products containing aristolochic acid (AA) have been widely used for acne, gastritis and so on. Recently, it is becoming accepted that AA may be responsible for acute and chronic renal failures as the side effects of Chinese herbs. However, it is unclear what happens in the cells after the AA treatment. In this study, the authors built a gene regulatory network as well as a microRNA-gene regulatory network to investigate the molecular dynamics induced by AA from a systematic perspective. With the regulatory networks, they detected some important pathways and biological processes that were affected by AA treatment, which can help explain the nephrotoxicity and carcinogenicity of AA. They found some important regulators and genes responding to AA treatment, and these genes have been reported to be related to the kidney functions, indicating their important roles in the toxicity of AA.
authors.affiliation: School of Communication and Information Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yin-Ying
authors.initials: YY
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cancer Stem Cell, Cancer Center, Dalian Medical University, 9 Lvshun Road South, Dalian, Liaoning 116044, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Zhiguang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Division of Genetic and Molecular Toxicology, National Center for Toxicological Research, US Food and Drug Administration, Jefferson, AR 72079, USA.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, School of Electronics and Information Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, People's Republic of China. xm_zhao@tongji.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Xing-Ming
authors.initials: XM
authors.lastname: Zhao
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D034341:Aristolochic Acids / Q000009:adverse effects*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks / Q000187:drug effects*; D007668:Kidney / Q000187:drug effects / Q000378:metabolism*; D008954:Models, Biological; D020543:Proteome / Q000378:metabolism*; D051381:Rats; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000187:drug effects*
chemical_list: D034341:Aristolochic Acids; D020543:Proteome; C000228:aristolochic acid I