Expression data from E161K LMNA mutant heart and control

Over 180 LMNA gene mutations have been identified in human diseases including cardiac and skeletal myopathies, lipodystrophies, and premature aging syndromes. Postulated mechanisms by which these mutations result in different phenotypes include perturbation of normal nuclear structure and chromosome organization, and gene activity. We investigated whether a cardiomyopathic LMNA mutation, E161K, displayed abnormal gene expression. We compared the gene expression profile in the E161K LMNA-mutant heart to that of an end stage LMNA-normal heart. We compared the gene expression levels between two end-stage cardiomyopathic hearts in order to detect the gene expression differences more likely to reflect the LMNA mutation state. A region of left ventricle tissue that was grossly less fibrotic and contained cardiomyocytes of the LMNA-mutant heart was selected for RNA isolation. A region of a male heart that was also end-stage dilated cardiomyopathy, but LMNA-normal and also devoid of obvious fibrosis was selected for RNA isolation. Two technical replicates were performed for each sample, and data were analyzed using two different normalization strategies (Mas5 and RMA).