CHARACTERIZATION OF DIFFERENTIALLY EXPRESSED GENES FOLLOWING BRIEF CARDIAC ISCHEMIA

For the study of ischemia-related adaptations we employed DDRT-PCR on mRNA obtained from heart regions undergoing brief (10') occlusions/rep erfusions. We found and sequenced 52 differentially expressed clones t hat we further characterized using Northern analysis with RNA from a w ide variety of tissues. We selected only clones (1) with a new sequenc e, (2) that showed a Northern signal, and (3) that exhibited organ-spe cific (heart, muscle) or (4) situation-specific (ischemia, non-specifi c stress) expression. We found two new heart-specific transcripts and three new stress-inducible genes. The transcripts with known sequences showed an expression pattern typical for repair processes after ische mia-reperfusion (ubiquitin, ATPases). About 20% of clones were truly d ifferentially expressed. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.