Regulation of cardiomyocyte hypertrophy through dynamic regulation of type I collagen

Communications between cardiomyocytes and fibroblasts in the heart are thought to occur through both secreted growth factors and via alterations in the structural properties of the extracellular matrix that each of the cell types helps generate. While perturbations in fibroblast activity are known to impact development of cardiomyocyte hypertrophy, the specific role played by collagen in this intercellular communication remains unknown. In this study we addressed this knowledge gap through differential regulation of collagen 1a2 using mouse hearts. The microarray assays reported here were carried out to assess the effects of collagen 1a2 ablation on cardiac transcriptional profiles. We used microarrays to generate information about transcriptional profiles of hearts lacking collagen 1a2 Hearts were harvested from 2-month old control and experimental mice. Total RNA was isolated using the Trizol protocol and submitted to Affymetrix Clariom S array pipeline after quality control analysis using Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer.