Responses of retinal and brain microvasculature to diabetes revealed by global expression profiling

Retinal microvessels (RMVs) and brain microvessels (BMVs) were isolated from diabetic and nondiabetic rats. RNA were extracted, amplified and processed on Affymetrix rat 2.0 microarray Chips. Differently expressed genes (DEGs) between diabetic RMVs and nondiabetic RMVs, and between diabetic BMVs and nondiabetic BMVs were analyzed. Using these DEGs, we analyzed and compared the diabetic effects on the gene expression profiles in retinal microvasculature and brain microvasculature. In the brain microvasculature multiple compensatory mechanisms exists, serving to protect brain tissue from diabetic insults, whereas these mechanisms are not activated in the retinal microvasculature. Totally, we analyzed four groups: diabetic_BMVs, nondiabetic_BMVs, diabetic_RMVs, nondidabetic_RMVs. Each group contains 6 biological replicates. The nondiabetic simples were used as controls.