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Microarray analysis of homocysteine‐responsive genes in cardiac neural crest cells in vitro
Author(s) -
Rosenquist T.H.,
Bennett G.D.,
Brauer P.R.,
Stewart M.L.,
Chaudoin T.R.,
Finnell R.H.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
developmental dynamics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.634
H-Index - 141
eISSN - 1097-0177
pISSN - 1058-8388
DOI - 10.1002/dvdy.21101
Subject(s) - neural tube , biology , neural crest , neural fold , homocysteine , neurulation , transcriptome , microbiology and biotechnology , microarray analysis techniques , microarray , neural plate , gene expression , gene , medicine , genetics , endocrinology , embryo , embryogenesis , gastrulation
The amino acid homocysteine increases in the serum when there is insufficient folic acid or vitamin B 12 , or with certain mutations in enzymes important in methionine metabolism. Elevated homocysteine is related to increased risk for cardiovascular and other diseases in adults and elevated maternal homocysteine increases the risk for certain congenital defects, especially those that result from abnormal development of the neural crest and neural tube. Experiments with the avian embryo model have shown that elevated homocysteine perturbs neural crest/neural tube migration in vitro and in vivo. Whereas there have been numerous studies of homocysteine‐induced changes in gene expression in adult cells, there is no previous report of a homocysteine‐responsive transcriptome in the embryonic neural crest. We treated neural crest cells in vitro with exogenous homocysteine in a protocol that induces significant changes in neural crest cell migration. We used microarray analysis and expression profiling to identify 65 transcripts of genes of known function that were altered by homocysteine. The largest set of effected genes (19) included those with a role in cell migration and adhesion. Other major groups were genes involved in metabolism (13); DNA/RNA interaction (11); cell proliferation/apoptosis (10); and transporter/receptor (6). Although the genes identified in this experiment were consistent with prior observations of the effect of homocysteine upon neural crest cell function, none had been identified previously as response to homocysteine in adult cells. Developmental Dynamics 236:1044–1054, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.