Identification and validation of differentially expressed genes in neural tube defects of golden hamster induced by hyperthermia using suppression subtractive hybridization.

Abstract

Hyperthermia during early pregnancy can induce neural tube defects (NTD) in embryos. In order to identify the differentially expressed genes that participate in this pathologic course, the authors performed suppression subtractive hybridization in two directions: forward and reverse. Neural tube tissues from golden hamster of normal and hyperthermia groups are used as the samples. As a result, several down-regulated genes were revealed and according to the function of their protein products they were classified into four categories: ribosomal proteins, metabolic enzymes, transcription and translation related factors, and others. On the other hand, the study found that two up-regulated gene fractions were of the same sequence and homology analysis shows that they are homologous to phosphoglycerate kinase 1 (pgk1). Of all these genes, differential expression patterns were confirmed by Northern blot analysis. The study results show that the genes identified have different expression and are stongly related to NTD induced by hyperthermia.