Transcriptome-wide microRNA expression of the heart of neonatal rats with polygenic cardiac hypetrophy

Identification of microRNAs differentially expressed between the neonatal heart of a genetic rat model of cardiac hypertrophy (the Hypertrophic Heart Rat, HHR) and the control (the Normal Heart Rat, NHR) using the Agilent Rat miRNA Microarray Kit Release 16.0. Neonatal (day 2) HHR and age-matched NHR were killed with an overdose of pentobarbitone (Lethobarb). The heart was immediately removed, and the ventricles were dissected from the atriums. The tissues were first preserved in liquid nitrogen and later transferred to a –80C freezer. Microarrays (one per sample, with no pooling) were performed on 8 neonatal HHR (4 male, 4 female) and 8 neonatal NHR (4 male, 4 female). After extraction of RNA, cRNA was prepared and arrays performed using Agilent Rat miRNA Microarray Kit Release 16.0 performed at the Ramaciotti Gene Function Analysis facility, University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.