Bovine granulocytes gene expression profiles reflect the aberration of liver functions

Liver takes multifunctional important roles and the prediction of its function is hard issue. Detecting methods of gene expression profiles like microarray provide functional information of tissues. Liver and peripheral white blood cells (PBLs) were collected from two different feeding conditioned Holstein cows; estrus cycle and middle of gestation. Also PBLs were fractionated with gradient cells separation. The RNA was applied to oligo-microarray and qRT-PCR. It revealed a group of stable bovine liver genes in constant physiological feeding condition. When they applied to different cows fed in different status, the profiles of some specific genes in liver coincided with those in PBLs. Microarray data were applied to a principal component analysis (PCA). It was found that the liver gene expression profiles were more coincided those in granulocytes than other PBLs fraction by PCA. The relationship between gene profiles in liver and granulocytes was confirmed by qRT-PCR and Hierarchical cluster analysis. Granulocytes gene profile is more reliable than those in mononuclear cells in reflection of liver metabolic function. These results suggest that expressed genes in PBLs, especially granulocytes, may be convenient bio-indicators for diagnosis of clinical disorder and/or detecting aberration of liver function in different feeding condition of cows. Bovine liver, peripheral blood granulocytes and mononuclear cells were obtained from estrous cycle (n=4) and mid gestation (n=4) of Holstein cows.