Objective: To explore the core controlling genes and their functions and pathways of gamma knife in the treatment of epilepsy in rats.
Methods: The temporal epilepsy rats induced by stereotactic technique were irradiated with gamma knife. Total RNA samples were isolated at 3 weeks post-irradiation. After hybridization, washing and staining, the probe arrays were scanned to acquire the gene chip data. The functional categories and affected pathways of differentially regulated genes were analyzed. And the gene co-expression network was constructed to determine the core controlling genes.
Results: The differentiated genes of normal, epileptic and epileptic rats treated with gamma knife were screened by 1.5-fold method. There were a total of 766 union genes. The differentiated up-regulated and down-regulated genes were obtained. These genes were involved in functional categories such as ion transport (P = 6.85 × 10(-24)), cell adhesion (P = 1.55 × 10(-8)) , response to mechanical stimulus (P = 7.86 × 10(-7)) , potassium ion transport (P = 2.63 × 10(-6)) and such pathways as MAPK signaling (P = 5.55 × 10(-6)), calcium signaling (P = 4.29 × 10(-5)) and TGF-beta signaling (P < 0.01), etc. And the core controlling genes from the gene co-expression network included Arf3, Akap5, Omd and Rtn4r, etc.
Conclusion: Gamma knife achieves its antiepileptic effect through modulating target genes involved in different functions and pathways.