Analysis of the transcriptome of adult cardiac myocytes stimulated with CTGF. Mus musculus

Transgenic mice with cardiac-restricted overexpression of connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) have substantially increased tolerance towards ischemia/reperfusion injury. In the transgenic mouse model, we found that CTGF induces expression of severeal genes putatively involved in cardioprotection. The purpose of this study was to determine gene expression in cardiac myocytes stimulated with purified, recombinant CTGF, comparing unstimulated and stimulated samples. The cytoprotective actions of CTGF was recflected in the transcriptome of CTGF-stimulated cardiac myocytes. Gene ontology analysis revealed that genes included under the terms anti-apoptosis, response to wounding, and response to stress were significantly overrepresented in cardiac myocytes exposed to CTGF. Serveral of the most higly up-regulated genes have previously been reported to exert cardioprotective actions and increase tolerance towards ischemia/reperfusion injury. Overall design: Primary, adult cardiac myocytes were cultured in the absence (n=6) or presence (n=6) of 200 nmol/L recombinant CTGF for 48 hours.