RNA-seq Analysis of Sox9f/f and Sox9HKO Mouse Primary Hepatocyte Transcriptomes

Purpose: To identify the alterations of genes transcriptional profile of hepatocytes obtained from Sox9f/f mice and Sox9HKO mice treated with partial hepatectomy (PHx). Methods: Sox9HKO mice were generated by Sox9f/f mice injected with AAV-TBG-Cre via tail. Sox9f/f mice and Sox9HKO mice were treated with PHx to induce liver regeneration. Liver mRNA profiles of 12-week-old Sox9f/f and Sox9HKO mice treated with PHx were generated by deep sequencing, using Illumina Novaseq 6000. We applied DESeq2 algorithm to filter the differentially expressed genes, after the significant analysis and FDR analysis under the following criteria: i) |log2FC| > 1 ; ii) Pvalue < 0.05. RT–PCR validation was performed using SYBR Green PCR Kit. Results: We identified the transcripts in the hepatocytes of Sox9f/f and Sox9HKO mice. 1379 transcripts showed differential expression between Sox9f/f and Sox9HKO mouse hepatocytes, with a |log2FC| > 1 and P value < 0.05. Altered expression of 4 genes was confirmed by qRT–PCR. Conclusion: Our study represents the first detailed analysis of liver transcriptomes of Sox9HKO mice during liver regeneration. RNA-seq based transcriptome analysis would provide us with a better understanding of the complex biologic functions of Sox9 in the hepatocyte during the pricess of hepatocyte proliferation in mice.