Effect of Qi-replenishing and blood-activating treatment on aberrant gene expression profile in the precancerous lesion of CAG in rats

AIM: To investigate aberrant gene expression of chronic atrophic gastritis (CAG) precancerous lesions in rats receoiving Qi-replenishing and blood-activating treatment and to analyze its pharmaco-mechanism at genetic level. METHODS: The model of precancerous lesion of CAG rats induced by spring insertion and hot paste was established. One step methodfor extraction of total RNA of rat stomach tis-sues after administration of Qi-replenishing and blood-activating medicinals and the stom-ach tissue of the model group was used. After reverse transcription and fluorescent labeling by Cy3, Cy5, we got two groups of rat stom-ach cDNA probes and then hybridized with the cDNA gene expression profi les microarray hybridization. The result was scanned by the laser scanner and processed by software for im-age analysis, standardization, the ratio of value analysis, cluster analysis and gene ontology analysis. Results of gene array were verifi ed by Real-time PCR. RESULTS: Screening showed 205 differen-tially expressed genes, of which, there were 101 up-regulated expression genes and 104 down-regulated expression genes. They composed the gene expression profiles for precancerous lesion of precancerous lesions of CAG in rats treated with Qi-replenishing and blood-activating medicinals. There were four genes related to apoptosis including heat shock 70 kDa protein 1a, growth arrest and dna-damage-inducible, complement compo-nent 9 and albumin. The Real-time PCR con-firmed expression of HSP70 up-regulated in rats treated with Qi-replenishing and blood-activating medicinals, which were consistent with results using microarray technology. CONCLUSION: These differentially expressed genes involved different biological processes and gene regulations. Further analysis of the differentially expressed genes might help re-veal the pharmaco-mechanism of Qi-replenish-ing and blood-activating medicinals at genetic level.