Objective: To study the alteration in cortex protein fingerprinting of cerebral cortex after closed brain injury in rat.
Methods: Seventy-two male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were randomly divided into sham operation group, 4, 8, 12, 24 and 48 hours postinjury groups. Eight rats in each group were used for WCX-2 protein chip research, and 4 rats in each group for pathological examination. Marmarou's weight-dropping model was reproduced, and brain cortex was harvested for study with hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining, and Bradford method was adopted for WCX-2 protein chip research, and protein chip reading was obtained for protein fingerprinting analysis.
Results: (1) The pathological observation showed different degree of injury could be seen in all the injury groups. (2) The WCX-2 experiment found that 3 protein expressions had changed in cortex after brain injury compared with the sham operation group. The differential protein with molecular weight of 5,639 protein expression was found to be upregulated at 8 hours after injury (P<0.05). The 3,212 protein did not expressed in sham operation or 4, 8, 12 and 24 hours groups, but upregulated at 48 hours after injury (P<0.05). The expression of 7,536 protein was upregulated at 24 hours after injury (P<0.05), but not in sham operation or 4, 8, 12, and 48 hours groups.
Conclusion: Alterations in protein expression in cerebral cortex could be induced after brain injury.