Journal of Korean medical science
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J. Korean Med. Sci. · May 2017
RNA-Seq for Gene Expression Profiling of Human Necrotizing Enterocolitis: a Pilot Study.
Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) characterized by inflammatory intestinal necrosis is a major cause of mortality and morbidity in newborns. Deep RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) has recently emerged as a powerful technology enabling better quantification of gene expression than microarrays with a lower background signal. A total of 10 transcriptomes from 5 pairs of NEC lesions and adjacent normal tissues obtained from preterm infants with NEC were analyzed. ⋯ Our gene ontology analysis between NEC lesion and adjacent normal tissues showed that down-regulated genes were included in nervous system development with the most significance (P = 9.3 × 10⁻⁷; P(corr) = 0.0003). In further pathway analysis using Pathway Express based on the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) database, genes involved in thyroid cancer and axon guidance were predicted to be associated with different expression (P(corr) = 0.008 and 0.020, respectively). Although further replications using a larger sample size and functional evaluations are needed, our results suggest that altered gene expression and the genes' involved functional pathways and categories may provide insight into NEC development and aid in future research.