Effect of Tgfbr2 disruption on gene expression in the aorta of Fbn1 wild-type and Fbn1C1039G mice

We used microarrays to characterize the global changes in gene expression within the ascending aorta of mice due to conditional disruption of TGF-β signaling in smooth muscle and/or due to heterozygous fibrillin-1 mutation. Myh11-CreERT2.Tgfbr2f/f (abbreviated as Cre.Tgfbr2) mice were cross-bred to Fbn1C1039G/+ (abbreviated as Fbn1C/+) mice and treated with vehicle or tamoxifen for 5 d starting at 4 wk of age to generate 4 groups of animals: 1) Cre.Tgfbr2-Veh: controls with intact TGF-β signaling and wild-type fibrillin-1 expression; 2) Cre.Tgfbr2-Tmx: conditional disruption of Tgfbr2 in smooth muscle with wild-type fibrillin-1 expression; 3) Fbn1C1039G.Cre.Tgfbr2-Veh: heterozygous expression of mutant fibrillin-1 with intact TGF-β signaling; and 4) Fbn1C1039G.Cre.Tgfbr2-Tmx: conditional disruption of Tgfbr2 in smooth muscle with heterozygous expression of mutant fibrillin-1. The animals were euthanized at 6 weeks of age and their ascending aortas (from above the coronary arteries to the first arch branch) were collected and total RNA was extracted.