Microarray analysis of aortic tissue from different rat hypertensive models

To determine if there exists a consistent gene signature associated with vascular hypertrophy among different rat hypertensive models: treated and untreated Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rats and treated and untreated Spontaneous Hypertensive Rat (SHR) rats. Keywords: strain comparison, treatment vs control Two strains of rat were studies: WKY which are normotensive and SHR which are hypertensive. Aortic tissue was taken from 6 untreated WKY rats and 6 WKY rats treated with angiotensin. Aortic tissue was taken from 6 untreated SHR rats, 6 treated with nifedipine for two weeks and 5 treated with nifedipine for two weeks and then washed out for three weeks. There was a total of 29 samples. A pool of RNA from 6 untreated WKY rats was used as a reference. Hybridizations were performed in duplicate with a dye-flip and always with the reference as the second color.