Gene expression profiling of hip cartilage with necrosis of femoral head

The pathogenesis of necrosis of femoral head (NFH) remains elusive now. Limited studies were conducted to investigate the molecular mechanism of hip articular cartilage damage of NFH. We conducted a genome-wide gene expression profiling of hip articular cartilage with NFH. Hip articular cartilage specimens were collected from 12 NFH patients and 12 healthy controls. Gene expression profiling of NFH articular cartilage was carried out by Agilent Human 4x44K Gene Expression Microarray chip. Differently expressed genes were identified using the Significance Analysis of Microarrays (SAM) software.