Comprehensive transcriptome analysis of the heart in control, PAH and PAH/aKO mice.

Pregnancy-associated hypertensive (PAH) mice were maintained by mating females carrying the human angiotensinogen (hAGT) gene with males expressing the human renin (hRN) gene, as previously described (Takimoto E., et al., Science, 1996). Angiotensin II (AngII) has critical roles in regulation of blood pressure. In late pregnancy of PAH mice, increased AngII causes acute and severe hypertension with proteinuria. Furthermore, PAH mice show cardiac hypertrophy, fibrosis and apoptosis. It is known that AngII downregulates mRNA of alpha 1a-adrenergic receptor (Adra1a) in neonatal rat cardiac myocytes (Li H.T., et al., Circ. Res., 1997). Interestingly, we found that Adra1a knock out PAH (PAH/aKO) mice display more severe phenotype of cardiac hypertrophy in comparison to PAH mice. In this study, to understand the molecular basis of cardiac hypertrophy via regulation of Adra1a expression with AngII in PAH mice, we performed a comprehensive analysis of gene expression changes in cardiac remodeling of PAH and PAH/aKO mice using the next-generation RNA sequencing (RNA-seq). Overall design: mRNA profiles of mouse brain were generated by RNA sequencing using the NextSeq 500 (Illumina).