Preliminary analysis on specific expressed genes in brain tissue of rats with stroke-like episodes induced by complex environmental factors / 中华神经科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the stroke caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors Though epidemiological studies have provided evidence of genetic influence on the occurrence of human stroke,however,the role of environmental risk factors to the development of stroke is still not well known. Methods Using cold stimuli plus high salt intake as environmental risk factors, we established a hypertension model in rats, for producing a complicated stroke, then, applied a new technique, suppression subtractive hybridization(SSH),to identify the differential genes which were specifically expressed in total rat cerebrum tissues in between two populations, namely the control and the stroke groups. Results Using this SSH approach, totally 288 clones were generated in our study from a subtractive libraries, among them,226 clones were usable and analyzed The average length of this group is (286 6?120 3) bp Among those clones, 126 clones represented sequences with significant identity to the known genes, 78 were matched to existing ESTs in dbEST but not to any known gene sequences, and the remaining 22 were novel transcripts exhibiting no similarity to any known sequences Mitochondrial transcripts were observed at a high rate of 26 5% Mitochondrial genes may play important roles in causes and effects of stroke. Conclusions Our investigation suggests that environmental risk factors may induce an increased sensitivity to stroke through genetic influence Also we will identify the genes responsible for stroke in this rat model