Short heat shock has a long-term effect on mesenchymal stem cells' transcriptome

Hear shock (HS) treatment protocols were designed to examine the short- or long-term effects of exposure to mild HS conditions on transcriptome of MSCs. Overall design: One day after seeding MSCs from early passages (P2–P4), were moved from 37°C to 40.5°C for six-hour (ShortHS) or three days (LongHS) or a six hours HS followed by three days recovery back at 37°C (ShortHS_Recovery). Each HS treatment had a matching 37°C normothermic (NT) control (ShortNT and LongNT). The two time points were selected in order to capture the immediate transcriptional effects of HS vs. the stable and delayed ones. Immediately after the completion of the six hours or three days treatments, the cells were harvested, viability checked and pellets stored at -80° for later matched RNA extraction and sequencing. RNA sequencing and bioinformatics analysis were performed to systematically examine the transcriptional changes following each treatment and to identify specific biological features and processes.