Project name: Mus musculus

Description: The main function of the nervous system is to maintain homeostasis by sensing and reacting to signals that reach a certain threshold 1-5. For example, the brain can sense immune peripheral events through soluble compounds or the vagus nerve and can react through activation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis, resulting in the modulation of an ongoing immune response. Cancer progression is characterized by high mutation rates, with each mutation potentially promoting alarm signals during the 10 to 15 years of cancer development before clinical detection. It is not known, however, whether the brain can recognize the presence of a peripheral tumour, and if this recognition can be molecularly assessed. Using genome-wide expression analysis in a model of lung carcinoma, we show that a tumor growing at the periphery can indeed promote changes in the expression levels of defined sets of genes in the hypothalamus. These changes occur as early as 18 h after tumour cell injection and involve specific signalling pathways. These findings prove that cancer-derived signals are effective in eliciting specific changes in gene expression in discrete brain regions and open a question regarding the potential role of brain genes in cancer outcomesKeywords: gene expression profile of the hypothalamus in response to peripheral tumor cellsOverall design: We used two-color oligonucleotides in-house printed microarrays in a case-control direct design with two technical replicates in a dye swap design. We analyzed 3 different time points: 18, 72 and 192 h after tumor cells or PBS injection. We performed 4 samples (biological replicates) for 18 h time point, 5 samples for 72 h time point, and 6 samples for 192 h time point.

Data type: Transcriptome or Gene expression

Sample scope: Multiisolate

Relevance: ModelOrganism

Release date: 2007-05-02

Last updated: 2007-03-16