Analysis of early changes in mouse heart transcriptome after myocardial infarction

Alternative splicing of RNA is an underexplored area of transcriptional response. We hypothesized that early changes in alternatively spliced genes may be important for responses to cardiac injury. The goal of this study was to use high throughput sequencing to determine which genes undergo alternative splicing in the initial response to ischemia after myocardial infarction. After ligation of the left anterior descending (LAD) artery in mice, ischemic heart tissue was isolated at 1 day and 3 days post-injury. Tissue was flash frozen and pulverized before RNA extraction. Sham-operated animals (no ligation of artery) were used as controls for each time point. Two mice were used for each condition as biological replicates.