PCR Analysis of the Expression of Chromosome 18 Genes in Human Liver Tissue: Interindividual Variability

Abstract

Using human chromosome 18 (Ch18) genes as an example, a PCR analysis of the interindividual variability of expression of 244 genes was performed in the liver tissue. Although the quantitative profiles of the Ch18 transcriptome, expressed as the number of cDNA copies per single cell, showed a high degree of correlation between donors (Pearson correlation coefficient r_p ranged from 0.963 to 0.966), the expression of the significant number of genes (from 13% to 19%, depending on the method of experimental data normalization) varied by more than 4-fold when comparing donors pairwise. At the same time, the proportion of differentially expressed genes increased with a decrease in the level of their expression. It is shown that the higher quantitative variability of low-abundance transcripts has mainly biological rather than technical nature. Bioinformatic analysis of the interindividual variability of the differential expression of Ch18 genes in the human liver tissue did not reveal any statistically significant groups of genes related to certain biological processes. This obviously indicates a rather transient nature of the interindividual variability of Ch18 gene expression, probably reflecting the response of cells of an individual to specific external stimuli.