Global gene expression analysis of fresh-frozen, furan-exposed mouse liver using one-colour Agilent microarrays

Furan is a mouse and rat hepatocarcinogen. We sought to determine if furan-induced gene expression changes could be detected in paired fresh-frozen and formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) samples using one-colour microarrays. All samples in this study (fresh-frozen, 18 hours in formalin, 3 weeks in formalin) were also examined using two-colour microarrays and RNA-seq (ribo-depletion and polyA-enrichment protocols) in order to determine the effect of the technology on gene expression profiles. In this study we examined the transcriptional response in liver tissue of female B6C3F1 mice exposed to furan for 3 weeks to 8 mg/kg bw furan (or vehicle control) and sacrificed four hours after the final exposure. Each dose group had 4 biological replicates. There were a total of 8 samples included in the final analysis of the one-colour microarrays. We used a randomized block design and SurePrint G3 Mouse GE 8x60K microarrays (Agilent).