microRNA expression in heart tissue

Ischemia reperfusion (I/R) injury is an unavoidable event occurring during heart transplantation, leading to graft failures and lower long-term survival rate of the recipient. microRNAs are major regulators of genes. IR causes apoptosis/death of cardiomyocytes, resulting from up-regulation of apoptotic genes and down-regulation of anti-apoptotic genes which are regulated by microRNA. We used microarrays to detail the global programme of gene expression underlying cellularisation and identified distinct classes of up-regulated genes during this process. We perserved donor hearts with university of Wisconsin solution for 18h at 4C degree before being implanted into recipients to create ischemia reperfusion injury. The preserved hearts were implanted into a syngeneic recipient mice. 24h after transplantation, heart grafts were harvested for microRNA extraction.