A high throughput study of gene expression in preterm labor using a subtractive microarray approach

Rebecca A. Muhle, Paul Pavlidis, William Noble Grundy and Emmet Hirsch

American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 185(3):716-24, 2001.

Abstract

Objective: We propose that elucidation of the pathphysiology of preterm labor can be achieved with genome-scale analyses of differential gene expression.

Study design: CD-1 mice on day 14.5 of a 19- to 20-day gestation were assigned to one of 4 treatment group smoedling different clinical conditions (n=5 per group): gropu A, infection with labor (intrauterine injection of 1010 heat-killed Escherichia coli, which causes delivery within an average of 20 hours); group B, infection without labor (intrauetrine injection of 107 heat-killed E. coli, which leads to normal delivery at term; group C, labor without infection (ovariectomy, which causes delivery within an average of 27 hours); and group D, no infection and no labor (intrauterine injection of vehicle). Total pooled myometrial RNA was prepared 3.5 hours after surgery for groups A, B and D and 5 hours after surgery for group C. The relative expression of 4963 genes was assayed in these pools by using DNA microarrays. Transcripts specificailly involved in infection-induced labor were identified by subtracting from the list of differentially regulated genes in group A those with common expresion in groups B and C.

Results: In group A 68 dfferentially expressed transcripts (> 2-fold upregulation or downregulation) were identified. Among these are 39 characterized genes. Fourteeen (45%) are involved in inflammatory responses, 7 (18%) are involved in growth-differentiation-oncongenesis, and 3 (8%) are involved in apoptosis. Subtraction identified 13 gene products most likely to be important for bacterially induced labor, as opposed to labor without infection or bacterial exposure without labor.

Conclusion: This study demonstrates the potential of the subtractive DNA microarray technique to identify transcripts important specifically for bacterially induced preterm labor.

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