Microarray Analysis of a Familial Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Mouse Model Rescued by a Phospholamban Knockout. Mus musculus

Familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (FHC) is a disease characterized by ventricular hypertrophy, fibrosis, and aberrant systolic and/or diastolic function. Our laboratories have previously developed 2 mouse models that affect cardiac performance. One transgenic mouse model encodes an FHC-associated mutation in α-tropomyosin (Tm180) that displays severe cardiac hypertrophy with fibrosis and impaired physiological performance. The other model was a gene knockout of phospholamban (PLB), a regulator of calcium uptake in the sarcoplasmic reticulum of cardiomyocytes; the hearts of these mice exhibit hypercontractility with no pathological abnormalities. Previous work in our laboratories show that the hearts of mice that were genetically crossed between the Tm180 and PLB KO mice rescues the hypertrophic phenotype and improves their cardiac morphology and function. We used microarrays to detail the global program of gene expression underlying cardiac remodeling and rescue of the hypertrophic cardiomyopathic phenotype and identified distinct classes of regulated genes during this process. Overall design: To understand the changes in gene expression that occur over time in these animal models (Tm180, PLB KO, Tm180/PLB KO and nontransgenic control mice), we conducted microarray analyses of left ventricular tissue at 4 and 12 months of age.