Pancreatic gene expression associated with cerulein induced chronic pancreatitis in mice

A frequently used experimental model of chronic pancreatitis (PC) recapitulating human disease is repeated injection of cerulein to mice. We found that two common substrains of C57BL/6 , C56BL/6J (Jackson) and C57BL/6NHsd (Harlan), exhibit different degree of CP with C57BL/6J being more susceptible to repetitive cerulein induced CP. The goal of this study was to identify genes associated with CP and also to identify genes differentially regulated between two substrains as candidates for the CP progression. RNAs were isolated from the pancreas of 8-week old Jackson and Harlan mice after the cerulein induction of chronic pancreatitis and hybridized on Affymetrix microarrays. Saline injected mice were used as controls. Three mice from each experimental and control groups were used in the experiment.