The Gene Expression Analysis in E12.5 Mouse Hearts with GATA4-FOG2 Interaction Loss. Mus musculus

In order to identify the targets of GATA4-FOG2 action in mammalian heart development we performed Affymetrix microarray comparisons of gene expression in normal and mutant at embryonic (E) day E12.5 hearts. We compared RNA samples from both Fog2-null and Gata4ki/ki mutant E12.5 hearts to the wild-type control E12.5 hearts. We reasoned that as the phenotypes of the Fog2 knockout and Gata4ki/ki mutation (a V217G mutation that specifically cripples the interaction between GATA4 and FOG proteins) are similar, we should expect to identify a similar set of differentially expressed genes in both experiments. As an additional control, we expected to find the Fog2 gene expression absent in the mutant (null) Fog2 cardiac sample, but not Gata4ki/ki sample. Overall design: We have analyzed 6 RNA samples total (3 from control hearts, 2 from FOG2 null hearts and 1 from GATA4ki hearts)