Microarray gene expression analysis in ovine ductus arteriosus during fetal development and birth transition.. Ovis aries

Patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) in the newborn is the most common congenital heart anomaly, and is significantly more common in preterm infants. Contemporary pharmacological treatment is effective in only 70 to 80% of the cases. Moreover, indomethacin or ibuprofen, which are used to close a PDA may be accompanied by serious side effects in premature infants. To explore the novel molecular pathways, which may be involved in the maturation and closure of the ductus arteriosus (DA), we used fetal and neonatal sheep to test the hypothesis that maturational development of DA is associated with significant alterations in specific mRNA expression. Overall design: We isolated DA and a segment of ascending aorta from preterm (97±0 days gestation) and near-term (136 ± 0.8 days) fetal sheep (full term = 145 days) and from 12±0 hours old newborn lambs (obtained from Pozzi Ranch, Valley Ford, CA)). Four animals (n=4) were used for each experimental group. At the time of experimental study, ewes and newborn lambs were euthanized with an overdose of the proprietary euthanasia solution Euthasol (pentobarbital sodium 100 mg.Kg-1 and phenytoin sodium 10 mg.Kg-1; Virbac, Ft. Worth, TX).