Regulation of gene expression with thyorid hormone in rats with myocardial infarction

Thyroid hormone improves left ventricular remodeling and cardiac performance after myocardial infarction (MI), but the molecular basis is unknown. This study was designed to detect gene expression changes in left ventricular non-infarcted areas at 4 weeks following myocardial infarction with and without thyroid hormone treatment. The results suggest that altered expression of genes for molecular function and biological process may be involved in the beneficial effects of thyroid hormone treatment following myocardial infarction in rats. MI was produced by ligation of the left anterior descending coronary artery in female SD rats. Rats were divided into the following groups: (1) Sham MI, (2) MI, and (3) MI+T4 treatment (T4 pellet 3.3mg, 60 days release, implanted subcutaneously immediately following MI). Four weeks after surgery, total RNA was isolated from left ventricular non-infarcted areas for microarray analysis using the Illumina RatRef-12 Expression BeadChip Platform.