Objective In this study, the effect of sevoflurane on gene expression in hippocampus of mice was studied by microarray analysis.

Methods Twelve postnatal day 7 (P7) C57BL/6 male mice were exposed to sevoflurane (concentration: 2.5%; RS group) or air (C group) for 2 h every day for 5 consecutive days (n=6 in each group), RNA was extracted from the hippocampus for gene expression profile analysis after the mice were sacrificed.

Results Compared to C group, 30 genes, including 16 up-regulated and 14 down-regulated genes, were significantly changed (>1.5 or < 1.5 fold) (P < 0.05). And these genes are mainly involved in learning and memory, cognition, cell metabolism, signal transduction and communication, etc.. We randomly chose 9 differential genes to verify the microarray results and found that 3 genes (Ppp1r1b, Id1, and Txnip) were up-regulated and 5 genes (Arc, c-Fos, Npas4, Grin2a and, Kcnj2) were down-regulated.

Conclusions Sevoflurane induces expression changes of some crucial genes in mouse hippocampus, which may be related to the cognitive impairment or the other neurological diseases.