Expression data from rat hepatocyte during liver regeneration after partial hepatectomy

The recovery of liver mass is mainly mediated by proliferation and enlargement of hepatocytes after partial hepatectomy. Studying the gene expression profiles of hepatocytes after partial hepatectomy will be helpful in exploring the mechanism of liver regeneration. We used microarrays to further highlight the regulatory role of hepatocyte in liver regeneration at gene transcription level. Rat liver regeneration after partial hepatectomy (PH) is a good model to study the regulation of cell proliferation. We isolated hepatocytes from regenerating liver at 9 time points (2, 6, 12,24, 30, 36, 72, 120, and 168h) after PH and measured gene expression profiles of hepatocytes from 2h to 168h with rat Genome 230 2.0 gene chip. Each sample corresponding to one time point was hybridized onto one array. The experiment was repeated 3 times for each time point. In total, 10 time points were measured and 0h was used control group. After careful quality control analyses of each chip, Affymetrix GCOS 2.0 software was used to analyze the data. The relevance of gene expression profiles and biological processes was analyzed by bioinformatics and systems biology.