DNA microarray analysis of fetal liver of C57BL/6J mice exposed to cadmium during gestation

抄録

Cadmium (Cd) is a non-essential toxic metal widely distributed throughout the environment. Cd is reported to be toxic to the fetus, so we aimed to investigate changes in gene expression in the liver of fetal mice exposed to Cd during gestation. We exposed pregnant mice to Cd (5 mg/kg) and collected fetal livers to perform DNA microarray analysis. The expression of 1,669 genes was found to be increased more than 2.0-fold, while that of 194 genes was decreased less than 0.5-fold in fetal livers following Cd exposure during gestation. We categorized the Cd-changed genes in terms of cell cycle and cell proliferation, apoptosis, cell growth and differentiation, cellular defense, metabolism, transport, transcription, signal transduction, metal homeostasis, and ubiquitin proteasome system. These results provide useful information about fetal toxicity following gestational Cd exposure.