Zhou Yun, Xu Jiucheng, Liu Yunqing, Li Juntao, Chang Cuifang, Xu Cunshuan
College of Life Science, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, Henan, China; Key Laboratory of Cell Differentiation and Regulation, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, Henan, China; College of Computer and Information Engineering, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, Henan, China.
College of Computer and Information Engineering, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, Henan, China.
PLoS One. 2014 Apr 17;9(4):e94868. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0094868. eCollection 2014.
The recovery of liver mass is mainly mediated by proliferation of hepatocytes after 2/3 partial hepatectomy (PH) in rats. Studying the gene expression profiles of hepatocytes after 2/3 PH will be helpful to investigate the molecular mechanisms of liver regeneration (LR). We report here the first application of weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) to analyze the biological implications of gene expression changes associated with LR. WGCNA identifies 12 specific gene modules and some hub genes from hepatocytes genome-scale microarray data in rat LR. The results suggest that upregulated MCM5 may promote hepatocytes proliferation during LR; BCL3 may play an important role by activating or inhibiting NF-kB pathway; MAPK9 may play a permissible role in DNA replication by p38 MAPK inactivation in hepatocytes proliferation stage. Thus, WGCNA can provide novel insight into understanding the molecular mechanisms of LR.
在大鼠进行2/3肝部分切除术（PH）后，肝脏质量的恢复主要由肝细胞增殖介导。研究2/3 PH术后肝细胞的基因表达谱将有助于探究肝再生（LR）的分子机制。我们在此报告首次应用加权基因共表达网络分析（WGCNA）来分析与LR相关的基因表达变化的生物学意义。WGCNA从大鼠LR的肝细胞基因组规模微阵列数据中识别出12个特定的基因模块和一些枢纽基因。结果表明，上调的MCM5可能在LR期间促进肝细胞增殖；BCL3可能通过激活或抑制NF-κB途径发挥重要作用；MAPK9可能在肝细胞增殖阶段通过使p38 MAPK失活在DNA复制中发挥允许作用。因此，WGCNA可为理解LR的分子机制提供新的见解。
