Cardiac and pulmonary responses to diesel engine particulate in Apo E(-/-) mice

Mice deficient in Apolipoprotein E (Apoe E(-/-)) vs wild type mice were exposed to diesel engine particulate by single dose intratracheal instillation. The transcript-level response of the hearts after 24h and of the lungs after 24 h and 5 days were subsequently analyzed by the 2-color microarray method. Keywords: stress response, disease state analysis Four mice of the Apo E (-/-) strain were exposed to diesel engine particulate from the National Institute of Standards and Technology via intratracheal instillation. Controls consisted of 4 littermates exposed to saline vehicle. Four wild type mice were similarly exposed to diesel particulate and four to vehicle control. 24 hours after exposure, mice were humanely sacrificed by carbon dioxide asphyxiation and the hearts and lungs were collected and frozen for analysis of total RNA. 2 color microarrays were utilized to compare pooled RNA representing all four animals of each strain, and in each condition and in each tissue.