Role of Histone Deacetylase 4 on cardiac expression after exercise

Physiological exercise leads to an activation of an distinct genetic program in the heart. During this process, we identified histone deacetlyase 4 (HDAC4) as an epigentic modifier, that regulates this adaptive process. To identify HDAC4 dependent genes that can are regulated after physiological stress, we investigated the cardiac gene expression in cardiomyocyte specific HDAC4 knockout animals and control animals after running exercise. We used microarrays to detail the global programme of gene expression underlying physiological cardiac adaption on exercise and identified distinct, histone deacetylase 4 dependent up-regulated genes during this process. Cardiac tissue was collected after a 2 weeks forced running exercise protocol in mice. We compared cardiac RNA of cardimoyocyte specific HDAC4 knockout animals to control littermates. In both groups we included 3 replicates and included 3 replicates from non running littermates (HDAC4 knockout and wildtype animals.