Diurnal Gene Variation in Mouse Eye. Mus musculus

The purpose of this study was to explore diurnal gene expression changes that occur in the RPE/Choroid/Sclera. Mice C57BL/6J were purchased from the Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, ME) and raised to approximately 2 months of age and entrained to a 12hr/12hr light/dark cycle for two weeks. Eye cups from male mice were rapidly dissected and RPE/ choroid/sclera tissues were collected over three consecutive diurnal cycles at Zeitgeber time (ZT) 0.5, 1, 1.5, 4, 11, 13, 16, and 23 hrs, for a total of 24 time points. Three mice were used for each time point and dissections for dark time points were done under dim-red light. To generate a reference RNA for microarray hybridization, whole eyes from equal numbers of male and female mice were collected at ZT6 and ZT7. Time: Samples were collected at the indicated Zeitgeber time points Overall design: time series design