Background & objective: Hippophae rhamnoides L. possesses functions of antioxidation and radioprotection. This study was designed to investigate changes in apoptosis-related genes expression profile in human breast carcinoma cell line Bcap-37 induced by flavonoids from seed residues of Hippophae rhamnoides L. (FHR) with cDNA microarray, and to explore possible mechanism of signal transduction on apoptosis.
Methods: Total RNA was extracted from Bcap-37 cells before and after treatment of FHR. Two cDNA probes, labeled by Cy3-dUTP or Cy5-dUTP fluorescent dyes, were synthesized via reverse transcription, and hybridized with a microarray contained 13 824 human 14K cDNA. Differential gene expression profiles of FHR group and control group were analyzed by Genespring software.
Results: After treatment of FHR, 305 genes were up-regulated, and 361 were down-regulated; 32 apoptosis-related genes were differentially expressed, and accounted for 0.23% of the total genes in cDNA microarray. Of the 32 apoptosis-related genes, 25 were up-regulated (average Ratio: 3.071), and 7 were down-regulated (average Ratio: 0.418). Bioinformatic analyses showed that the 32 genes, including CTNNB1, TSSC3, IGFBP4, IGFBP6, GADD34, TNFRSF10B, Caspase-9, and PCNA, related with apoptosis of Bcap-37 cells when treated with FHR.
Conclusion: Apoptosis of Bcap-37 cells induced by FHR relates with various genes through co-regulating of intracellular and extracellular signal transduction pathways.