Figure 4.

Influence of GABARAP ablation on the gene expression profile of mammary glands. (a) Heat map of differentially expressed genes in mammary glands of female Wt and GABARAP KO mice. A comparative analysis of control Wt (CWT) (n=3) and DMBA-treated Wt (DWT) (n=6) with their control KO (CKO) (n=3) and DMBA-treated KO (DKO) (n=6) counterparts identified 50 genes that were significantly altered. (b–d) Relative mRNA expression of Xaf1, Bax and Cdkn1a, respectively, in mammary glands of vehicle-treated (control) and DMBA-treated mice, as measured by quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR (qRT-PCR). Xaf1 expression was mainly influenced by the GABARAP genotype (b). Mammary glands from KO animals had elevated expression levels of Xaf1, a result that is consistent with the increased amount of apoptosis of these cells displayed. In contrast, Bax and Cdkn1a expression was not only affected by the genetic background of the animals (KO versus WT) but also by the DMBA treatment (c, d). The relative expression values of each gene were normalized to GAPDH for each sample. Values are mean±S.E.M. of 4–6 samples of each group. *P<0.05, **P<0.01, ***P<0.001