RNA-Seq transcriptome profiling of embryonic age 17.5 or E17.5 ventricles of cardiac specific-estrogen-related receptor alpha and gamma (ERRa/g) knock out (KO) mouse generated by Nkx2.5-Cre driver and its control wild type.

Transcriptional regulatory circuits that drive cardiomyocyte maturation during the developmental process are poorly understood. Estrogen-related receptor alpha and gamma (ERRa/g) have been shown to be involved in all aspects of mitochondrial energy production. However, the function of ERR during the cardiac developmental process is not understood well. To examine the role of (ERRa/g), we generated cardiac-specific ERRa/g knockout (KO) mice and found that the KO mice died within 24 hours post-birth. At embryonic age 17.5, a number of genes involved in oxidative mitochondrial metabolism including OXPHOS, TCA cycle, and fatty acid oxidation were dramatically downregulated. Also, the mutant hearts exhibited a significant downregulation of adult cardiac contractile protein, ion channel and Ca2+ handling genes. In contrast, fetal cardiac genes and non-cardiac genes that express in fibroblast or endothelial cells were ectopically induced in the KO hearts. These results suggest that ERRa/g are essential factors for the broad cardiomyocyte maturation program. Examination of how gene expression levels are changed by KO ERRa/g in the embryonic hearts (E17.5) in triplicates. Two hearts were pooled for each replicate.