Differences in gene expression profiles in liver caused by different types of anesthesia: cases of CO2-O2 and isoflurane.

Anesthesia is used for pain control and is necessary in toxicological studies. In this study, we examined the effects of anesthesia on gene expression profiles caused by different types of anesthesia. To elucidate the effects of anesthesia on gene expression profiles, DNA microarray analysis was performed with CO2-O2 anesthesia and isoflurane anesthesia, and gene expression profiles in the liver were analyzed. Consequently, a total of 209 probes out of 61,573 showed higher or lower expression levels in the isoflurane anesthesia group compared with CO2-O2 anesthesia. This is less than 0.34% of all probes, indicating that the effects of different types of anesthesia on gene expression profiles are limited. However, careful consideration should be taken in the cases of handling the disturbed genes using DNA microarray, especially in case of research on glutathione-related pathway under isoflurane anesthesia.