DNA microarray-based experimental strategy for trustworthy expression profiling of the hippocampal genes by astaxanthin supplementation in adult mouse.

Naturally occurring astaxantin (ASX) is one of the noticeable carotenoid and dietary supplement, which has strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, and neuroprotective effects in the brain through crossing the blood-brain barrier. Specially, we are interested in the role of ASX as a brain food. Although ASX has been suggested to have potential benefit to the brain function, the underlying molecular mechanisms and events mediating such effect remain unknown. Here we examined molecular factors in the hippocampus of adult mouse fed ASX diets (0.1% and 0.5% doses) using DNA microarray (Agilent 4 × 44 K whole mouse genome chip) analysis. In this study, we described in detail our experimental workflow and protocol, and validated quality controls with the housekeeping gene expression (Gapdh and Beta-actin) on the dye-swap based approach to advocate our microarray data, which have been uploaded to Gene Expression Omnibus (accession number GSE62197) as a gene resource for the scientific community. This data will also form an important basis for further detailed experiments and bioinformatics analysis with an aim to unravel the potential molecular pathways or mechanisms underlying the positive effects of ASX supplementation on the brain, in particular the hippocampus.