Introduction. Adipogenesis comprises multiple processes by which mesenchymal stem cells differentiate into adipocytes. To increase our knowledge of the mechanism underlying adipogenic differentiation of human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs), we performed full-genome gene expression microarray and gene ontology analyses of induced differentiation of hMSCs.

Material and methods. Adipogenic differentiation of hMSCs was induced by an adipogenic medium, and total RNA was extracted from undifferentiated hMSCs (day 0) and differentiated adipocytes (day 14). Then microarray hybridization of RNA samples was performed. The GeneChip Operating Software was used to analyze the hybridization data to identify differentially expressed genes, which were performed Gene Ontology categorization and pathway analysis. Pathway-act-network and genes-act-network were built according to the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes database. Some differentially expressed genes were subjected to qRT-PCR to verify the microarray data.

Results. We detected a total of 3,821 differentially expressed genes, of which 753 were upregulated and 3,068 downregulated. These genes were well represented in a variety of functional categories, including collagen fibril organization, brown fat cell differentiation, cell division, and S phase of mitotic cell cycle. Subsequently, pathway analysis was conducted, and significant pathways (from top 50) were selected for pathway-act-network analysis, which indicated that the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway and cell cycle were of high degrees (> 10). Gene-act-network analysis showed that insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF1R), histone deacetylase 1 (HDAC1), HDAC2, MAPK13, MAPK8, phosphoinositide-3-kinase regulatory subunit 1 (PI3KR1), and PI3KR2 also had high degrees (> 18).

Conclusions. Collectively, these data provide novel information and could serve as a basis for future study to clarify the mechanisms underlying adipocyte differentiation of hMSCs.