Microarray analysis of femoral artery injury in mice. Mus musculus

To determine the differential expression of genes at sites of vascular injury in mice Overall design: Four male, 5-6 mo old SMA-GFP mice (numbered 57, 60, 61, and 63) were subjected to fine wire femoral artery injury. The left femoral artery of each mouse was injured, and the contralateral artery was used as an uninjured control. The mice recovered from the injury procedure for 14 days, at which time they were sacrificed. The femoral arteries were removed and the adventitial side was extensively cleaned. The arteries were carefully opened longitudinally and immediately imaged for GFP. GFP-negative regions of the arteries, representing sites of vascular injury were microdissected, quick-frozen on dry ice, and stored in liquid nitrogen. Uninjured arteries were isolated and analyzed similarly; the entire uninjured artery was frozen. Total RNA was prepared. A 100-ng portion of each sample was subjected to linear amplification and hybridized to Affymetrix mouse gene 1.0ST.