Mitochondria‐Specific Mouse Gene Array and its Application in Toxicogenomics

In recent years, mitochondria have gained significant attention in toxicology because of their involvement in several drug-induced toxicities and in the pathogenesis of a number of degenerative diseases. Thus far, numerous molecular and biochemical assays have been developed and utilized to understand the association between mitochondria and drug toxicities or disease processes. However, the knowledge gained by these assays is inadequate to obtain a comprehensive outlook of the mitochondrial activity during toxic exposures and the underlying pathologies. High-throughput technologies, such as DNA microarray, have great potential in advancing genomic research in toxicology. This technology allows expression profiling of thousands of genes in a single experiment. Building on this technology, a mitochondria-specific mouse oligonucleotide microarray (MitoChip) was developed, which is described in this review. This review also discusses results generated using the MitoChip in studies that were designed to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of altered mitochondrial function induced by anti-HIV drugs (zidovudine and lamivudine) and a weight-loss dietary supplement (usnic acid) in mice. The results from these studies clearly demonstrate that the MitoChip is a valuable genomic tool and can help unravel the underlying molecular basis of impaired mitochondrial function in drug-induced toxicities. Keywords: anti-HIV drugs; gene expression profiles; mitochondria; MitoChip; mouse; usnic acid