Gene expression in aortic roots of Apoe KO mice with Nod1 stimulation. Mus musculus

To explore the mechanisms underlying progression of atherosclerosis provoked by Nod1 ligand stimulation, we performed microarray gene expression profiling of aortic roots of 6- and 9-week-old Apoe KO mice with or without oral FK565 administration. A gene ontology analysis of the genes up-regulated in FK565-administrated group at both time points showed that a number of biological process terms were associated with immune response. Among chemokine/cytokine genes, we observed that only 3 genes such as Ccl5, Ccl8 and Cxcl16 elevated more than 2-fold in response to oral administration of FK565 at both time points. Overall design: An eight chip study using total RNA recovered from aortic roots in Apoe KO mice with or without FK565 administration, at the age of 6 and 9 weeks. Two independent experiments were performed in each group. In FK565-administrated groups, mice were orally administrated FK565 (50 µg) twice a week for 1 or 4 weeks from 5 weeks of age.