Analysis of gene expression profiles related to pathogenesis of pancreatic cancer associated diabetes

Abstract

Objective To explore the gene expression profiles related to pathogenesis of pancreatic cancer associated diabetes (PCA-DM) and provide new clues for the study of PCA-DM. Methods The tissues of four patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma with diabetes (PCA-DM), four patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma without diabetes (PC) and four patients with chronic pancreatitis (CP) were analyzed by microarrays individually, and following box diagram, volcano diagram, heat map analysis, gene interaction network analysis; chromosome positioning analysis, gene ontology (GO) analysis, and RT-PCR was used to confirm the results. Results Data showed that the microarray analysis was well controlled in quality. There were 2 778 differentially expressed genes of pancreatic cancer tissues between PCA-DM and PC individuals, among them, there were 123 genes with difference expression >10 folds; and there were 7 475 differentially expressed genes between PC and CP, among them, there were 730 genes with difference expression >10 folds. The differentially expressed genes between PCA-DM and PC individuals were less than those of PC and CP in quantity and fold changes. Furthermore, the majority of differentially expressed genes between PCA-DM and PC were located near the PC and CP on the genome. GO analysis demonstrated that the overrepresented items included drug catabolic process, pigmentation, GTPase activity. The decreased GO items included protein metabolic process, protein binding. Gene network analysis indicated that a total of 40 genes including HSPA1A, CSNK1A1, EIF4A2, MYCBP2, PRKRA and NGFR may be related the pathogenesis of PCA-DM. Totally 13 genes including TFF1, MSMB, NOX1 were of potential diagnostic value to PCA-DM. Conclusions Pathogenic gene expression profiles of PCA-DM is established, potential causative genes and genes of potential diagnostic value are discovered. Key words: Pancreatic neoplasms; Diabetes mellitus; Gene expression profiling; Nicrochip analytical procedures