Analysis of fatty acid metabolism-related gene expression in diabetic rat hearts

The morbidity and mortality of Diabetes mellitus is in part due to its vascular complications. Therefore, it is important to identify cellular and molecular mechanisms of vascular damage early in the diabetic state. The purpose of this thesis research was to develop techniques to identify genes that are differentially expressed in the hearts of control and diabetic rats, using macroarray and real-time PCR techniques. The array experiments identified numerous genes with altered mRNA levels, including several genes involved in lipid and carbohydrate metabolism, and ion channelling. For selected genes, the expression changes were verified by real-time PCR. Generally, the direction of gene expression changes was similar between macroarray and real-time PCR experiments, but the numerical changes significantly differed between the two methods. Thus, macroarray analysis is a valid survey technique to identify potential gene expression changes in the heart of diabetic rats, but quantitative analysis requires verification by real-time PCR.