Gene profiling of the early healing rat medial collateral ligament

The objective of the study was to better understand the mechanism behind scar formation by identifying ECM factors and other unique genes differentially expressed during rat ligament healing via microarray. Rat medial collateral ligaments (MCL) were surgically transected or left intact. MCLs were collected at day 3 or 7 post-injury and used for microarray analysis. Results were compared to the normal intact ligaments.本研究旨在通过微阵列（microarray）技术筛选大鼠韧带愈合过程中差异表达的细胞外基质（Extracellular Matrix, ECM）因子及其他独特基因，以深入解析瘢痕形成的潜在机制。本研究对大鼠内侧副韧带（medial collateral ligaments, MCL）实施手术切断或保留完整的处理，分别于损伤后第3天、第7天采集韧带样本用于微阵列分析，并将结果与正常未损伤的韧带样本进行比对。