Gene expression of Mus exposed to chronic hypoxia

High altitude environments are characterized by the unique and unavoidable stress of chronic hypoxia. While much is known about gene expression responses to acute or in vitro hypoxia, less is known about the gene expression profiles of animals exposed to systemic chronic hypoxia, such as that experienced at high elevations. Here we simulated the hypoxic environment of two high altitude elevations,and a third chamber recieved ambient Reno air. Mice were housed in the hypoxic chambers for 32 days. We used microarrays to characterize the differential gene expression in the livers of mice housed in hypoxic environment of 4500 m versus 3000 and 1400 m. We used this data to draw hypotheses related to novel physiological responses to chronic systemic hypoxia Mice were housed one of three chambers; the first received ambient Reno air (1400 m) and the other two received air mixed with nitrogen such that one chamber simulated the hypoxic environment of 3000 m and the third chamber simulated hypoxic environment of 4500 m. Twelve mice were housed in each chamber for 32 days. Liver were extracted, and RNA from livers of 4 mice were pooled such that each treatment was represented by 3 pooled samples. Eight of the nine arrays were used for data analysis; one array was excluded as several Affymetrix quality control metrics indicated data quality that was not reliable.