Early effects of Serum Response Factor (SRF) gene deletion on the vascular gene expression

The objective of this study is to assess the early effects of the Serum Response Factor deletion on the vascular gene expression program. To generate smooth muscle specific SRF knockout, 4 month-old [SRF-flex2neo -SM22CreERT2ki/+] mice (SRFSMKO mice) were injected i.p. with 1mg of tamoxifen for 3 days. All control (SRF-flex2neo littermates) and SRFSMKO mice were systematically injected with tamoxifen to normalize for any effects due to tamoxifen. Mice were sacrificed 8 days after tamoxyfen injection for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays.