Changes of pancreatic gene expression and signal transduction pathway in large conductance calcium-activated potassium channels gene knockout rats detected by transcriptome sequencing / 中华胰腺病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the differences of gene expression and signal transduction pathways in large conductance calcium-activated potassium channels(BKCa) gene knockout rats and analyze the role of BKCa gene in pancreas.Methods:Three adult female BKCa knockout SD rats (BKCa knockout group) were donated by Professor Wang Wei from Department of Pathology and Physiology of Basic Medical College of Capital Medical University, and three wild type adult femal SD rats were used as wide-type group. The whole pancreas was resected and RNA was extracted. RNA transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) technology was used for sequencing and DESeq2 differentiation analysis software was used for screening differentially expressed genes between two groups, and the gene ontology(GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes(KEGG) enrichment analysis were performed. The key genes were validated by RT-PCR.Results:18 258 genes were detected by sequencing in the 2 groups. There were statistically significant differences in the expression of 348 genes screened by DESeq2, 200 of which were highly expressed in the pancreas of BKCa knockout group, and 148 of which were low-expressed. 214 differentially expressed genes enrichments were found in GO database, including 25 involved in biological process, 18 in cell components and 14 molecular functions. All 348 differentially expressed genes were found in KEGG database, 15 of which were significantly enriched in PI3K/Akt signaling pathways. RT-PCR results showed that the expression of key genes Hsp90ab1, Hsp90aa1, Foxo3a and Col1a2 in the BKCa knockout group was significantly higher than that in wide type group ( P<0.0001), while Thbs1, Pik3r1 and Ppp genes were not significantly different. Conclusions:Differentially expressed genes and related important regulatory signaling pathways were screened out between BKCa knockout SD rats and wild-type SD rats at the transcriptional level, and PI3K/Akt pathway was found to be the most enriched, providing an important clue for predicting the function of BKCa in the pancreas.