OBJECTIVETo investigate the differential gene expression profile of the lung tissues in experimental silicosis rats and to screen for and identify the key signal transduction pathways in pulmonary silicotic fibrosis.

METHODSA total of 80 rats were randomly divided into control group (n = 40) and silica-instilled group (n = 40). Each group was equally divided into five subgroups, and each subgroup was treated at 1, 7, 14, 21, or 28 d. Intratracheal instillation was used to give 1 ml of silica suspension (50 mg/ml) in the silica-instilled group and normal saline in the control group. Silicotic nodules and type I and III collagen were observed through hematoxylin and eosin staining and Sirius red staining, respectively. Differentially expressed genes in pulmonary silicotic fibrosis were selected by the rat whole-genome gene expression RatRef-12 BeadChip (Illumina, USA), and a fold change cutoff was applied. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was also used to verify differentially expressed genes. Through bioinformatics databases such as Visualization and Integrated Discovery (DAVID) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), preliminary research was performed on the biological pathways of differential genes, key biological signal transduction pathways were identified, and key differentially expressed genes in each pathway at different time points were searched for.

RESULTSA total of 2694 genes were differentially expressed and changed dynamically. The KEGG pathway analysis showed that 141 signal transduction pathways were involved in the development and progression of pulmonary silicotic fibrosis, among which 48 pathways were more significant than others (P < 0.01), with the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway exceptionally significant. The differentially expressed genes interleukin-1 receptor (IL-1R), tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR), and transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) in the MAPK pathway were up-regulated at different time points after silica instillation. The results of real-time PCR showed that granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) was over-expressed at 4 time points and under-expressed at 1 time point compared with the control group.

CONCLUSIONThe MAPK signal transduction pathway plays a very important role in the development of pulmonary silicotic fibrosis. Both IL-1R and TNFR may play major roles during inflammation phase through the P38/Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) pathway, and TGF-β may have important function through the extracellular-signal-regulated kinase (ERK) pathway in the formation of fibrosis.