Excitation transcription coupling during acute stretch and tachycardia in non-failing human myocardium

Stretch increases wall stress and so far the molecular mechanisms behind increased afterload had been thouroughly studied in vitro and in vivo. Tachycardia when accutelly triggered has the potential to induce cardiac remodeling as stretch does. However the degree of response, similarities and differencess have not been adressed so far. We aimed to perform whole genome screening for genes that are affected by accute application of stretch and tachycardia in human non-failing tissue. Atrial muscle strips (trabeculae) were subjected to 6h of either condition followed by RNA isolation and hybridisation on the Affymetrix microarrays (5 patients per group - tretament and coresponding control, replicates from the same patients were pooled together were applicable).