Gene Expression Profiling in Liver Transplant Recipients With Alcoholic Cirrhosis

The main objective of this study was to identify differences in gene expression profile using microarray technology in liver transplant recipients with alcoholic cirrhosis before and after liver transplantation. The study was performed in liver transplant recipients with alcoholic cirrhosis (n = 10) and in healthy volunteers (n = 10), as a reference group. Peripheral blood samples were obtained before (T0) and 7 days after liver transplantation (T7d) using tubes with an RNA stabilizer. RNA was purified and quality tested. From each participant in the study, microarrays were done in duplicate using 10 μg of cRNA. After reverse transcription, complementary RNAs were labeled with Cy5 Streptavidine and used for hybridization of 20,000 human genes CodeLink bioarrays (Applied Microarrays, United States) overnight at 37°C. Arrays were read with a laser scanner and quantified and normalized with CodeLink Software 4.2. Liver transplant recipients showed a gene expression profile before transplantation (T0) of 4310 overexpressed genes compared with healthy volunteers, with 407 of these genes increased more than 2-fold (P < .05). After transplantation (T7d), the same group of patients showed a profile of 1011 overexpressed genes compared with T0, with 109 of these genes increased more than 2-fold (P < .05). We determined gene expression profiles in peripheral blood samples obtained before and after liver transplantation, giving a report of array gene expression profiles of peripheral blood samples from each of these patients. One implication of these results is that gene profiling of peripheral blood samples using microarray technology could be used to dynamically monitor the impact and adequacy of immunosuppression in individual patients.