OBJECTIVETo screen the differential expression gene profile in nasal mucosa of seasonal allergic rhinitis (SAR) and SAR with asthma, oligonucleotide microarray (Affymetrix HG-U133-plus2) was employed to analyze the changes of gene expressions with GeneSpring software.

METHODSInferior turbinate mucosa was obtained from five SAR patients and four SAR with asthma patients. Total RNA was extracted from the nasal mucosal biopsies and pooled into one SAR control pool and one SAR with asthma patient pool, and biotin-labeled cRNA probes were hybridized with Affymetrix HG-U133-plus2 array. The hybridization results were confirmed by RT-PCR analysis. The analysis of differential expression profiles were performed by GeneSpring software 7.3.

RESULTSOut of 47,000 analysed transcripts, 1,900 genes were differentially expressed at least 2-fold in which 849 genes were up-regulated and 1,051 genes were down-regulated in nasal mucosa of SAR with asthma patients compared with that in SAR patients. These genes were involved in cell metabolism, gene transcription, cell proliferation, signal transduction, immune response, enzyme activity, transmembrane receptor activity, cytoskeletal protein binding, and many other aspects. Pathway analysis displayed 161 groups, of which including more than 20 genes were as follow: cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, focal adhesion, cell adhesion molecules (CAMs), regulation of actin cytoskeleton, cell communication, gap junction, MAPK signaling pathway, calcium signaling pathway, leukocyte transendothelial migration, and purine metabolism.

CONCLUSIONSThe data suggested that multigentic expression and regulation changes were involved in the development of SAR and SAR complicated with asthma, whose molecular mechanisms might be elucidated by identification of these differential genes.