Gene expression of skeletal muscles in response to overexpression of Notch1 intracellular domain (N1ICD)

Analysis of gene expression profile of Tibialis anterior (TA) skeletal muscle tissues with Notch1 intracellular domain (N1ICD) overexpression. Skeletal myogenesis involves sequential activation, proliferation, self-renewal/differentiation and fusion of myogenic stem cells (satellite cells). Notch signaling is known to be essential for the maintenance of satellite cells, but its function in late-stage myogenesis, i.e. post-differentiation myocytes and post-fusion myotubes, is unknown. Here we use muscle creatine kinase (MCK)-Cre to induce N1ICD expression in multinucleated myotubes. We found that myotube-specific Notch1 activation improved muscle regeneration and exercise performance of mdx mice, a model of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). Agilent microarray was performed to compare gene expression in mdx control and N1ICD-overexpressing mdx muscles. The results may provide mechanistic insights into how Notch1 activation in myotubes modulate muscle function. Two-condition experiment, mdx muscle vs. N1ICD-mdx muscle. Biological replicates: 3 mdx TA muscles and 3 N1ICD-mdx TA muscles. Please note that experiments were performed technically as dual channel (eg, Cy3-labeled-mdx and Cy5-labeled-N1ICD samples hybridized to the same array) but the results were processed as though they are single channel (Cy3 and Cy5 signals are calculated).