Murine livers post DEN treatment: c-Jun f/f vs. c-Jun Dli [35MM]. Mus musculus

Liver carcinogenesis induced by DEN closely mimics the pathologies observed during human liver tumor initiation and progression. DEN treatment triggered c-Jun expression lasting up to at least 1 week in mouse livers as measured by Western blots and immunohistochemical staining. DEN-induced liver tumorigenesis was also dramatically reduced in Alfp-cre+/c-jun f/f mice, in which c-Jun is constitutively deleted in hepatocytes around birth. These data unambiguously demonstrate that c-Jun is specifically required during liver cancer initiation. We searched for cell death effectors downstream of c-Jun operating in cancer initiation. Expression profiling revealed that several cell death-associated genes were deregulated by comparing Alfp-cre+/c-junf/f and Alfp-cre-/c-jun f/f livers. Mouse livers were collected before and 48hours after diethylnitrosamine treament (100mg/kg body weight). Whole genome expression profiles were analyzed using total RNAs extracted from the whole liver samples. Overall design: By comparison of the gene expression profiles of these samples, genes with significantly altered expression levels will be selected and further characterized for their roles in DEN-induce liver cell death in tumor initiation.