| Research Abstract |
To elucidate precise mechanism of progression of chronic compressive myelopathy, we analyzed gene expression profile of chronically-compressed spinal cord using cDNA microarray. We employed ttw mice, which is a mutant mouse naturally develop calcified deposit at C1/2 level, as a model for chronic spinal cord compression. Fluorescent probe were made from mRNA extracted from spinal cord tissue of ttw or control mice and hybridized with cDNA microarray which contains cDNA from mouse brain and neural stem cell. After the identification of differentially expressed genes in the spinal cords of the ttw and control mice by our microarray system, we confirmed the results using semi-quantitative RT-PCR. Among the 4,851 genes on the cDNA microarray chip, one gene (0.02%) showed increase greater than a 2-fold, and 17 genes (0.35%) showed decrease less than a 2-fold in expression. The up-regulated gene was gephyrin (X66366). The seventeen down-regulated genes were extracellular superoxide dismutase
… More
(SOD3;U38261), p34 (AF178669), GalNAc alpha-2,6-sialyltransferase V (AB028840), a glucosidase II a subunit (U92793), nuclear RNA export factor 1 homolog (BC005594), ss-spectrin (Spnb-2;M74773), UDP-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase (AF363030), mPACPL1 (AB030038), HOOK1 (AF044923), NCAML1 (AU035962), NSPC1 (BC004952), solute carrier family 29 (BC006812), serine/threonine protein kinase (AB041542), and 4 unknown genes (BE291425,BC003481,AU051226,AU078872). To confirm the microarray data, semi-quantitative RT-PCR was performed for the microarray-screened 18 genes. Among those 18 genes, gephyrin (up-regulated in ttw mice) and NSPC1 (down-regulated in ttw mice) were excluded because no significant difference in expression level of those two genes was detected by semi-quantitative RT-PCR. On the contrary to the results of our previous study about acute spinal cord injury, unexpectedly small number of genes showed alteration of expression in the chronic spinal cord compression in the present study. There may be difference in mechanism of progression between acute and chronic spinal cord compression. Less
|
