Effect of ATF4 gene knockout on skeletal muscle mRNA levels in fasted mice

ATF4 is a fasting-induced transcription factor that promotes skeletal muscle atrophy. The goal of these studies was to determine how of loss of ATF4 affects skeletal muscle mRNA expression. For additional details see Ebert et al, Stress-Induced Skeletal Muscle Gadd45a Expression Reprograms Myonuclei and Causes Muscle Atrophy. JBC epub. June 12, 2012. Muscle-specific ATF4 knockout (ATF4 mKO) mice and littermate controls were fasted for 24 hours and then tibialis anterior muscles were harvested. mRNA levels in ATF4 mKO muscles were normalized to levels in littermate control muscles.ATF4是一种禁食诱导的转录因子（transcription factor），可促进骨骼肌萎缩。本研究旨在明确ATF4缺失对骨骼肌mRNA表达的影响。更多细节参见Ebert等人的研究：《应激诱导的骨骼肌Gadd45a表达重编程肌细胞核并导致肌肉萎缩》，该论文于2012年6月12日在线发表于《生物化学杂志》（Journal of Biological Chemistry, JBC）预印版。实验中，将骨骼肌特异性ATF4敲除（ATF4 mKO）小鼠及其同窝对照小鼠禁食24小时，随后采集其胫骨前肌（tibialis anterior）。将ATF4 mKO小鼠骨骼肌中的mRNA水平以同窝对照小鼠的mRNA水平作为归一化参照。