Transcriptome analysis of hepatic fibrosis induced by common bile duct ligation

Abstract

Cholestatic is an important factor causing liver fibrosis with a clinical incidence rate of about 10.26%. Although the progress of cholestatic hepatic fibrosis can be delayed by clearing the etiology and improving bile toxicity, how to treat antifibrotic is still an important and difficult problem in clinical treatment. In this study, we utilized Illumina sequencing technology to deeply mine the changes of mRNA expression during BDL-induced hepatic fibrosis. A total of 239,727,428 clean reads and 3224 Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were obtained with 2852 genes were upregulated and 372 genes were downregulated. GO enrichment revealed that DEGs were mostly associated with biological processes, among which cellular process is the most enriched with 2253 genes up-regulated and 270 genes down-regulated. KEGG annotated 340 pathways in all, of which pathways in cancer and PI3K-Akt signaling pathway were most enriched. Six significantly DEGs were verified by RT-qPCR, and the results were consistent with the transcriptome sequencing outcome. These DEGs and pathways may play a crucial role in the occurrence and development of liver fibrosis, and may be potential therapeutic targets of liver fibrosis. Further investigations are needed to clarify its specific mechanism.