Transcription profiling of mouse heart to examine sex-specific gene expression

In this study cDNA microarrays were used to identify genes with sex-biased expression in mouse whole hearts of two age classes (2 months and 8 months of age). Experiment Overall Design: A total of 24 male and female C57BL/6 mice were sacrificed at two and eight months of age, respectively (n=6 per group). Isolated total RNAs were pooled according to sex and age and hybridized on Agilent cDNA microarrays (age-matched, male vs. female or vice versa). Four technical replicates were carried out with exchanged dye-labelled RNA probes (dye-swap) on two of them.本研究利用cDNA微阵列（cDNA microarray）技术，在两个年龄组（2月龄与8月龄）的小鼠全心脏中筛选具有性别偏好性表达的基因。 实验整体设计：共计24只C57BL/6品系雌雄小鼠，分别于2月龄和8月龄时处死，每组样本量n=6。 研究人员按性别与年龄对提取的总RNA进行混合，并将其在安捷伦（Agilent）cDNA微阵列上完成杂交，设置年龄匹配组：雄性vs雌性，反之亦然。 针对其中2组样本，采用交换荧光染料标记的RNA探针（染料互换，dye-swap）的方式开展4次技术重复实验。