Effects of various causes, such as aging, smoking, and epithelial damage, on the global gene expression profiles of the mouse nasal mucosa and olfactory bulb

The olfactory system is a part of the mammalian central nervous system and is characterized by neurogenesis and replacement of degenerated neurons. Clinically, it has been reported that the various causes including aging, smoking, and epithelial damage have a high incidence of olfactory impairment. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying these causes-associated defect of olfaction have yet been unclear. To elucidate this problem, we performed micoarray analysis against mouse nasal mucosa and olfactory bulb and compared the transcriptome of them among groups. Gene expression of nasal mucosa and olfactory bulb from young-adult (8 weeks of age) and aged (16 months of age) male C57BL/6 mice was measured as follows; young and aged control groups, young and aged smoking groups (days 1, 7, 14, 28, 42 after 20 times of smoking), young and aged damaged groups (days 7 and 14 after epithelial damage), young and aged smoking and damaged group (days 7 and 14 after epithelial damage).　Each total RNA sample pooled from 5 biological replicates (two experimental replicate) was analyzed using microarray.