Inventory of genes expressed in human control hippocampus

Serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) was used to get a global view of the gene profile in human hippocampus. A library were generated from control hippocampus, obtained by rapid autopsy. Keywords: hippocampus human inventory genes Control hippocampus (used to construct the SAGE control library) was obtained from a 48 years old man without history of seizures or other neurological diseases and no brain abnormalities at autopsy and histologically normal hippocampus. Autopsy was performed within 4 hours after death. Tissue was snap-frozen and stored at –80 0C until use. Total RNA was isolated from control hippocampus and hippocampal surgical specimens, using the Trizol method according to the manufacturer’s instructions (Invitrogen - Life Technologies, The Netherlands). Part of the anterior hippocampus of control (including sectors CA1- CA4 and dentate gyrus, DG) was used. Poly(A)+ RNA isolation, cDNA synthesis and all subsequent steps of the SAGE procedure were essentially performed as described (Velculescu et al., 1995) with minor modifications given previously (Michiels et al., 1999).