TUESDAY, Sept. 20 (HealthDay News) -- Using RNA samples from failing and non-failing human hearts, a team of researchers has identified more than 1,000 genes that are differentially expressed in the failing heart, according to a report presented Monday at the 9th annual scientific meeting of the Heart Failure Society of America in Boca Raton, Fla. The study confirms that transcription factors identified in mouse models, such as MEF2, NKx and NF-AT, are indeed important in human heart failure.
Thomas P. Cappola, M.D., of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues won a Heart Failure Society of America's New Investigator Award-Clinical/Integrative Physiology for the research. In the study, Cappola's team used Affymetrix HU133A arrays to analyze RNA samples from 173 failing and 13 non-failing human hearts.
They identified 1,021 differentially expressed genes in ischemic and 1,002 genes in non-ischemic heart failure compared to controls. They found binding sites for MEF2, NKx factors, and NF-AT over-represented in the promoter regions of the differentially expressed genes. Also over-represented were several factors not previously associated with heart failure, including IRF and members of the FOX transcription factor family, the researchers found.
"Our findings validate for the first time the relevance of MEF2, NKx, and NF-AT transcription factors in human heart failure," the researchers conclude.
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