Gene profile of replicative senescence is different from progeria or elderly donor

In vitro cellular senescence of human diploid fibroblast has been a good mo del for aging research, which shows similar phenotypes to in vivo aging. Ge ne expression profiling would provide an insight to understand the mechanis m of senescence. Using cDNA microarray containing 384 known genes, we compa red the expression profiles of three different types of aging models: repli cative senescence, fibroblasts from progeria or from elderly donor. Althoug h all of them showed senescence phenotypes, distinct sets of genes were alt ered in each group. Pairwise plots or cluster analysis of activation fold o f gene expression revealed closer relationships between fibroblasts from pr ogeria or from old individual, but not between replicative senescence fibro blasts and either models. Differential expression pattern of several genes were confirmed by RT-PCR, We suggest that the replicative senescence model might behave differently to other types of aging models due to the distinct gene expression. (C) 2001 Academic Press.