Exaggerated autophagy as molecular characterization of Stanford type A aortic dissection: A transcriptome analysis of human ascending aortic tissues

Purpose: The aim of this study is to have a fullscape of molecular pathology of Stanford type A aortic dissection Methods: All TAAD patients under consideration underwent an ascending aortic replacement surgery during a cardiopulmonary bypass. The normal ascending aortic tissue samples were obtained from patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting surgery (CABG) without any aortic diseases. We selected 20 samples (10 TAAD and 10 normal) for the whole transcriptome sequencing. Total RNA was extracted from each sample using TRIzol Reagent (ThermoFisher) and was stored in 1 mL of 75% ethanol at -80 ? until further usage. Conclusions: We identified exaggerated autophagy as a molecular biomarker for aortic dissection. We also predicted 10 hub genes and an HIF1A-ATG3 axis which could provide new insights in understanding aortic dissection. Overall design: transcriptome sequencing analysis of Stanford type A aortic dissection