Gene expression analysis in skeletal muscle and heart of 11 days-old TK2 knockout mice

TK2 deficiency causes severe mtDNA depletion in several tissues, including skeletal muscle and heart. TK2 knockout mice grow slower and their skeletal muscles appeared significantly underdeveloped, whereas heart was close to normal size. We used microarrays in order to compare the transcriptomes in skeletal muscle and heart tissue of 11 days-old TK2 knockout pups with the sames tissues of wild-type pups at the same age. We collected skeletal muscle from the hind limb and hearts of three 11 days-old TK2 knockout and three wild-type pups and extracted total RNA. These RNA samples were used for hybridization in Affymetrix arrays.TK2缺陷（TK2 deficiency）可导致骨骼肌、心脏等多种组织发生严重的线粒体DNA（mitochondrial DNA，mtDNA）耗竭。TK2基因敲除小鼠（TK2 knockout mice）生长迟缓，其骨骼肌显著发育不全，而心脏尺寸则接近正常水平。本研究采用基因芯片技术，对比11日龄TK2基因敲除幼鼠与同年龄段野生型幼鼠的骨骼肌和心脏组织的转录组表达谱。我们从3只11日龄TK2基因敲除幼鼠及3只同年龄段野生型幼鼠的后肢骨骼肌与心脏中采集组织样本，并提取总RNA（total RNA）。上述RNA样本用于Affymetrix基因芯片的杂交实验。