Profiling Gene Expression in Intra-abdominal Adhesion Formation. Mus musculus

Background: Adhesion formation in the peritoneal cavity is the most-common cause of intestinal obstruction. The aim of this study was to analyze the dynamic gene expression patterns in the small bowel of mice featuring surgically-induced intra-abdominal adhesion. Methods: In an experimental study, mRNA was extracted from the small bowels of sham control mice and small bowel-scraping mice following surgically-induced intra-abdominal adhesion at 1, 3, 7, and 14 days post surgery. The mouse cDNA microarray was used to monitor the dynamic changes of the tested genes. Results: We identified 520 genes with a greater than 1.5 fold change across all studied mice groups. Quantitative RT-PCR and immunohistochemical staining certified, respectively, the expression of certain selected genes. The number of apoptotic cells contained within the adhesion tissue increased in a time-dependent manner. The serum concentration of neuropeptide Y was significantly greater for the test mice compared to the controls. Conclusions: Surgical intervention to the small bowel induces an adaptive response of damaged tissue in order to eliminate excessive complement-mediated lysis, prevent oxidative injuries, and enhance cell proliferation. These findings may provide insights into the pathogenesis of complications following adhesion formation and might also help to identify some new target genes for specific diagnostic tools and novel therapeutic strategies. Keywords: Time course study Overall design: To identify genes of small bowels affected in the progression of intra-abdominal adhesion, the mice were divided into 5 groups (sham control, and 1, 3, 7, and 14 after surgical intervention), and the cDNA microarray was used to simultaneously assess the expression profiles of 6,144 mouse genes in abraded small bowels of mice. Microarrays were performed in duplicate using cDNA probes derived from different cohorts.