Global Gene Expression Profile of the Hippocampus in a Rat Model of Vascular Dementia

Global Gene Expression Profile of the Hippocampus in a Rat Model of Vascular Dementia

LIN WU,^1,2 XIAO-TAO FENG,¹ YUE-QIANG HU,³ NONG TANG,^1,2,3 QING-SHAN ZHAO,⁴ TIAN-WEI LI,¹ HAI-YUAN LI,¹ QING-BI WANG,¹ XIN-YA BI¹ and XIN-KUN CAI¹

¹Guangxi Scientific Experimental Center of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine, Nanning, Guangxi, P.R. China
²Guangxi Key Laboratory of Chinese Medicine Foundation Research, Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine, Nanning, Guangxi, P.R. China
³Department of Internal Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine, Nanning, Guangxi, P.R. China
⁴Graduate School, Hunan University of Chinese Medicine, Changsha, Hunan, P.R. China

Vascular dementia (VD) has been one of the most serious public health problems worldwide. It is well known that cerebral hypoperfusion is the key pathophysiological basis of VD, but it remains unclear how global genes in hippocampus respond to cerebral ischemia-reperfusion. In this study, we aimed to reveal the global gene expression profile in the hippocampus of VD using a rat model. VD was induced by repeated occlusion of common carotid arteries followed by reperfusion. The rats with VD were characterized by deficit of memory and cognitive function and by the histopathological changes in the hippocampus, such as a reduction in the number and the size of neurons accompanied by an increase in >intercellular space. Microarray analysis of global genes displayed up-regulation of 7 probesets with genes with fold change more than 1.5 (P < 0.05) and down-regulation of 13 probesets with genes with fold change less than 0.667 (P < 0.05) in the hippocampus. Gene Ontology (GO) and pathway analysis showed that the up-regulated genes are mainly involved in oxygen binding and transport, autoimmune response and inflammation, and that the down-regulated genes are related to glucose metabolism, autoimmune response and inflammation, and other biological process, related to memory and cognitive function. Thus, the abnormally expressed genes are closely related to oxygen transport, glucose metabolism, and autoimmune response. The current findings display global gene expression profile of the hippocampus in a rat model of VD, providing new insights into the molecular pathogenesis of VD.

keywords —— gene expression profile; hippocampus; ischemia-reperfusion; memory impairment; vascular dementia

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Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2015, 237, 57-67

Correspondence: Nong Tang, Ph.D., Guangxi Scientific Experimental Center of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine, 179 East Mingxiu Road, Nanning, Guangxi 530001, P.R. China.

e-mail: tangnxz2012@163.com