Expression data from liver, muscle and fat tissue of children with end stage liver disease

Cachexia, described as a syndrome of weight loss, muscle wasting, fat loss and insulin resistance has been described in patients with chronic liver disease. Whereas extensive work is being done to delineate these molecular pathways in adult patients with chronic liver or other disease, very little is known about these pathways in children with chronic liver disease. We used microarrays to detail the global programme of gene expression underlying the metabolic processes of cachexia in children with end stage liver disease udergoing liver transplantion. We included tissue from patients with Crigler-najjar syndrome as controls. We were able to identify distinct classes of differentially regulated genes related to these processes. 9 liver, 11 muscle (rectus abdominis) and 11 subcutaneous fat tissue samples were collected at the time of liver tranplantation from 11 patients with end stage liver disease as well as 2 liver, 2 muscle and 2 fat samples from 2 children with Crigler-Najjar syndrome serving as controls. Please note that 2 of the (end stage liver disease) patients did not give good quality Liver RNA so were not processed onto microarrays. BA = Biliary atresia BC = Biliary cirrhosis NSC = Neonatal sclerosing cholangitis a1AT = Alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency