Gene expression in mouse muscle over time after nickel pellet implantation.

The transition metal nickel is used in a wide variety of alloys and medical devices. Nickel can cause a range of toxicities from allergy in humans to tumors when implanted in animals. Several microarray studies have examined nickel toxicity, but so far none have comprehensively profiled expression over an extended period. In this work, male mice were implanted with a single nickel pellet in the muscle of the right leg with the left leg used as a control. At 3 week intervals up to 12 months, nickel concentrations in bioflulids and microarrays of surrounding tissue were used to track gene expression patterns. Pellet biocorrosion resulted in varying levels of systemic nickel over time, with peaks of 600 μg L