BACKGROUND
Doxorubicin has proved to be a useful chemotherapeutic agent especially for osteogenic sarcoma. It induces cancer cell death via apoptosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: To explore and analyze the changes of gene expression during doxorubicin induced apoptosis on human osteogenic sarcoma, Saos-2 cell, cDNA microarray was performed. After treatment with doxorubicin, total RNA was purified and expressed genes were investigated with a 17k human cDNA microarray. RESULTS: For analysis of the cDNA microarray, the genes were filtered using the sum of the median value of Cy3 and Cy5 signal intensity of greater than 800. Expression of 264 genes was changed by more than 2 fold, and the expression of 35 genes was changed more than 3 fold after treatment with doxorubicin. The genes were primarily related to cell death, cell growth and maintenance, signal transduction, cellular component, transport, and metabolism. CONCLUSION: Treatment with doxorubicin induced expressional change of many genes. Some of the genes might be related with apoptosis directly or indirectly. Further study is now needed to characterize these genes.