Abstract: OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relevance of the pituitary to liver syndromes and cancer by studying the pituitary transcriptome profile in liver cancer mice with different syndromes.METHODS: The quantitative four diagnosis and syndrome differentiation methods were used to screen normal control mice without syndromes(NC), liver cancer mice with poisonous pathogenic factors syndrome(PPFS), and Qi deficiency syndrome mice(QDS). An Affymetrix Gene Chip MouseExon 1.0 ST Array was performed to detect the gene expression of different groups. Gene clustering was applied to analyze the gene expression patterns of the PPFS and QDS groups compared with the NC group. The transcriptional networks analysis tool, Fun Net, was used to enrich the biological categories of differentially expressed genes in the PPFS and QDS groups.RESULTS: Biological categories of differentially expressed genes showed that excessive metabolism and extracellular matrix interaction, insufficient communication of cells(especially nerve cells), and the bidirectional regulation of genetic information processing were enriched in both syndromes. However, the degree of excessive metabolism in the PPFS group was higher than that in the QDS group.The hyperfunction of cancer and infection, and the hypofunction of the nervous and endocrine systems were obvious in the QDS group.CONCLUSION: The pituitary plays an important role in the development of liver cancer and syndromes. This study further studied the role of the pituitary in the combination of disease and syndromes.

Key words: Liver neoplasms, Syndrome, Pituitary gland, Transcriptome