RNA-seq of myocardial tissue from abdominal aortic-banded rats with and without systolic heart failure

In the present study we aimed to investigate whether alterations in left ventricular myocardial micro-RNA (miRNA) expression and post-transcriptional gene regulation might contribute to the development of systolic heart failure in aortic-banded (AB) rats. Hence, in young adult male Sprague-Dawley rats abdominal AB was carried out. In 10% of the AB animals, congestive systolic heart failure developed after 12 weeks of follow-up. These rats made up the AB-heart failure group. On the other hand, in the majority of the AB rats (almost 90%), heart failure signs were not present. These rats made up the AB-hypertrophy group. Additionally, sham-operated animals served as controls. miRNA profiling was conducted in all the three experimental groups. Based on the NGS data, network theoretical miRNA-target analysis was than performed to predict target genes. The mRNA expression of the predicted genes were finally measured by qPCR.