Specific changes of liver transcriptome in the early stages of copper accumulation in the mouse model of wilson disease

Wilson disease (WD) is a severe metabolic disorder caused by genetic inactivation of copper-transporting ATPase ATP7B. In WD, copper accumulates in several tissues, particularly in the liver, inducing marked time-dependent pathological changes. To identify initial events in the copper-dependent development of liver pathology we utilized the Atp7b-/- mice, an animal model for WD. Analysis of mRNA from livers of control and Atp7b-/- 6 weeks-old mice using oligonucleotide arrays revealed specific changes of the transcriptome at this stage of copper accumulation. Few messages (29 up-regulated and 46 down-regulated) change their abundance more than 2-fold pointing to the specific effect of copper on gene expression/mRNA stability. The gene ontology analysis revealed copper effects on distinct metabolic pathways. Keywords: comparative genomic hybridization RNA isolation for microarrays: Immediately after removal, what size [mg] the liver pieces for RNA isolation were frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored till further use. The total RNA was isolated from frozen mouse livers using TRIZOL reagent (Invitrogen) according to manufacturer’s recommendations followed by a subsequent sample