Comparative analysis of gene expression in C57BL/6J and DBA/2J aging lungs.

We hypothesize that gene expression in the aging lungs of these two strains of mice are divergent thus contributing to the disparity in the phenotypes. More specifically, (1) Aging DBA/2J mice compared to aging C57BL/6 mice are known to be accelerated in their lung physiology and morphometry; (2) C57BL/6J are known to have longer natural longevity than DBA/2J mice. In order to test these hypotheses at the gene expression level, we utilized microarray analysis to examine transcriptional differences between aging lungs of both strains of mice. Keywords: comparative expression profiling This study utilizes microarray analysis to test these hypotheses. Three sets of lungs were harvested from both strains at each time point (C57BL/6J: 2, 18, AND 26 mos; DBA/2J: 2 and 18 mos). RNA was isolated and used for global gene expression profiling (Affymetrix Mouse 430 2.0 array). Statistically significant gene expression was determined as a minimum 6 counts of 9 pairwise comparisons, minimum 1.5-fold change, and p < 0.05. Further, Absolute | FC - FC SEM | >= 1.5.