Glucocorticoid receptor (GR) target genes in C2C12 myotubes

Analysis of C2C12 myotubes treated with dexamethasone (Dex) for 6 or 24 hours. Dex is a synthetic glucorticoid receptor agonist. Results provide insight to the effect of glucocorticoids on myotubes. C2C12 myotubes were cultured in DMEM supplemented with 2% horse serum, and treated with 1 uΜ Dex or an equal volume (0.01% v/v of media) of vehicle control ethanol for 6 or 24 hours. Total cellular RNA was isolated utilizing the NucleoSpin RNA II kit (Macherey-Nagel). RNA isolates were first quantified by standard spectrophotometry, and then qualitatively evaluated by capillary electrophoresis employing the Bio-Rad Experion system per manufacturer’s instruction. The final labeled cRNA samples were hybridized overnight to Illumina mouseWG-6 BeadChip arrays, which was performed at UCSF Genomic Core. All treatments were done in triplicates and the same batch of microarrays were used for all treatments. The Illumina expression arrays were pre-processed using lumi package. The differential expression analysis was performed using the Limma package.