Characterization of Heart Valve Leaflets from Adult and Juvenile Rapacz Familial Hypercholesterolemic Swine

Rapacz Familial Hypercholesterolemic (RFH) swine have been used extensively in the vascular biology field as a robust model of complex atherosclerotic lesions. However, the heart valves from RFH swine have not been evaluated and it is unknown whether these animals develop calcific aortic valve disease without dietary intervention. Histological assessment of heart valve leaflets isolated from juvenile and adult swine revealed RFH swine develop the early hallmarks of the disease at two years of age. The goal of this microarray study was to gain some insight into the cellular and molecular mechanisms that lead to the observed hallmarks and initiation of the disease. RNA samples from three juvenile wild type, and three juvenile and four adult RFH swine aortic valve leaflets were isolated, processed, and hybridized to Affymetrix GeneChip Porcine Genome microarrays according to the manufacturer's instructions. The mean expression values of each probeset in the adult RFH samples were compared to those in the juvenile RFH samples. Likewise, the mean expression values of each probeset in the juvenile RFH samples were compared to those in the juvenile wild type samples.