Author: Morita K, Saito T, Ohta M, Ohmori T, Kawai K, Teshima-Kondo S, Rokutan K.
Affiliation: Department of Stress Science, Institute of Health Biosciences, The University of Tokushima Graduate School, 3-18-15 Kuramoto-cho, Tokushima 770-8503, Japan.
Conference/Journal: Neurosci Lett
Date published: 2005 June 10-17
Other:
Volume ID: 381 , Issue ID: 1-2 , Pages: 57-62 , Word Count: 136
In this study, we have developed a microarray including 1467 cDNAs that were selected to specifically measure stress response in peripheral blood leukocytes. Venous blood was collected from 10 graduate students 2 h before and 2 or 24 h after an open presentation for their Ph.D. The mRNA levels in leukocytes were compared with those prepared 4 weeks before the presentation. Hierarchical cluster showed that distinct groups of genes uniformly changed their expression values in response to the stress. Bayesian t test identified significantly up-regulated 49 genes and down-regulated 21 genes. Most of them are categorized into cytokines, cytokine receptors, growth- or apoptosis-related molecules, and heat shock proteins, suggesting that stressful life events trigger acute responses in leukocytes. Our results suggest that gene expression profile in peripheral blood leukocytes may be a potentially useful method for the assessment of complex stress responses. PMID: 15882790