Gene expression changes associated with myocarditis and fibrosis in hearts of mice with chronic chagasic cardiomyopathy

Chronic chagasic cardiomyopathy is a leading cause of heart failure in Latin American countries. About 30% of Trypanosoma cruzi-infected individuals develop this severe symptomatic form of the disease, characterized by intense inflammatory response accompanied by fibrosis deposition in the heart. We performed a microarray analysis of a mouse model of this disease and identified >5% alterations of gene expression in the heart. Most of the upregulations were associated with immune-inflammatory responses (chemokines, adhesion molecules, cathepsins and MHC molecules) and fibrosis deposition (extracellular matrix components, lysyl oxidase and Timp1). Our results indicate potentially relevant factors involved in the pathogenesis of the disease that may provide new therapeutic targets in chronic Chagas’ disease. The heart transcriptomes of 4 age-mached Trypanosoma cruzi-infected and 4 control C57Bl/6 mice were profiled and compared using Duke Mouse 30k Oligonucleotide Arrays (Operon V3.0.1) hybridized in the "multiple yellow" strategy described in Iacobas et al, Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2006 349(1):329-38.