Transcriptional gene expression profiles of HGF/SF-met signaling pathway in colorectal carcinoma

AIM: To explore the transcriptional gene expression profiles of HGF/SF-met signaling pathway in colorectal carcinoma to understand mechanisms of the signaling pathway at so gene level.METHODS: Total RNA was isolated from human colorectal carcinoma cell line LoVo treated with HGF/SF (80 ng/L)for 48 h. Fluorescent probes were prepared from RNA labeled with cy3-dUTP for the control groups and with cy5-dUTP for the HGF/SF-treated groups through reversetranscription. The probes were mixed and hybridized on the microarray at 60 ℃ for 15-20 h, then the microarray was scanned by laser scanner (GenePix 4000B). The intensity of each spot and ratios of Cy5/Cy3 were analyzed and finally the differentially expressed genes were selected by GenePix Pro 3.0 software. 6 differential expression genes (3 up-regulated genes and 3 down-regulated genes) were selected randomly and analyzed by β-actin semiquantitative RT-PCR.RESULTS: The fluorescent intensities of built-in negative control spots were less than 200, and the fluorescent intensities of positive control spots were more than 5000.Of the 4004 human genes analyzed by microarray, 129 genes (holding 3.22 % of the investigated genes) revealed differential expression in HGF/SF-treated groups compared with the control groups, of which 61 genes were up-regulated (holding 1.52 % of the investigated genes) and 68 genes were down-regulated (holding 1.70 % of the investigated genes), which supplied abundant information about target genes of HGF/SF-met signaling.CONCLUSION: HGF/SF-met signaling may up-regulate oncogenes, signal transduction genes, apoptosis-related genes, metastasis related genes, and down-regulate a number of genes. The complexity of HGF/SF-met signaling to control the gene expression is revealed as a whole by the gene chip technology.