Evaluation of the Chinese Medicinal Herb, Graptopetalum paraguayense, as a Therapeutic Treatment for Liver Damage in Rat Models
Figure 5
The 256 gene expression patterns from experimental samples. (a) Principal component analysis (PCA) of liver damage-related gene expression profiles from 5 different groups, including normal (C, marked in red), DMN treatment (D, yellow), GP treatment only (M, cyan), Silymarin-therapeutic (S, blue), and GP-therapeutic (Z, pink). PCA analyses were conducted on the expression of the 256 genes on the array (left side). The 3D distribution patterns indicate that there were excellent therapeutic effects and no notable liver damage patterns at molecular levels. Based on the ANOVA results (right), expression of 64% of the genes (165 genes out of 256) was significantly reversed in the GPtherapeutic treatment, whereas only 9% (23 genes) were reversed using Silymarin. (b) Hierarchical clustering identified three biological process categories: metabolism, cell growth and/or maintenance and response stimulus. Here, rows represent individual transcripts and columns represent each time course sample. The right two columns of each classification indicate the expression patterns of the GP therapeutic groups in the 6th week. Expression of metabolism and cell growth and/or maintenance genes in the GP therapeutic groups reverted to normal levels; response stimulus gene expression did not. The color in each cell reflects the expression level of the corresponding sample relative to its mean expression level, and the scale extends from fluorescence ratios of 0.25 to 4 relative to the mean level for all samples.
