In the early developing stage of the central nervous system, proliferation of newly produced cells from the neuroepithelial cells were maintained with the survival signals from tropic factors such as fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) and endothelial growth factors (EGFs) in addition with other signals, e.g. TGFβ signal, Wnt-singal, Delta-Notch signal, LIF signal, etc. In the later stage, action potential- dependent survival signals take part, known as "firing rule". Assuming that the action potential- dependent survival signals are participated, at least in a part, by the activation of glutamate receptors, we have examined the function of glutamate receptors in proliferative cells in the central nervous system. In the present study, we performed genome-wide gene expression analysis using a human glioblastoma cell line, CGNH, of which proliferation and migration are glutamate dependent. Total RNA was prepared and biotinylated antisense RNA was synthesized according to Affymetrix's one-cycle target labeling protocol. Using a GeneChip Human Genome U133 plus 2.0 oligonucleotide array, which contains 54,655 probes, expression of mRNA in CGNH cells was examined. Expression profiles of glutamate receptor subunits, GluR1-4, NMDAR1 show good agreements with quantitative RT-PCR. Whole expression profiles were compared with other glioblastoma cell lines in MIAME data base (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo). The result shows that glutamate survival signals and tropic factors signals might be in trade-off relationships. [J Physiol Sci. 2007;57 Suppl:S226]