Gene expression in the vascular wall of the aortic arch in spontaneously hypertensive hyperlipidemic model rats using DNA microarray analysis

In recent years, there has been an increase in patients with arteriosclerosis and the risk of lifestyle-related diseases. However, the pathogenesis and medication of atherosclerosis have not been elucidated. We developed a rat model of lifestyle-related diseases by feeding a high-fat diet and 30% sucrose solution (HFDS) to spontaneously hypertensive hyperlipidemic rats (SHHR) and reported that this model is a useful model of early atherosclerosis. In order to elucidate the pathogenesis of early atherosclerosis, we searched for atherosclerosis-related genes by microarray analysis using the aortic arch rat model of lifestyle-related diseases. Four-month-old male Sprague–Dawley rats and SHHR were each divided into two normal diet (ND) groups and two HFDS groups. After a four-month treatment, the expression of mRNA in the aortic arch was detected using the oligo DNA microarray one-color method and quantified using real-time PCR. In this study, we detected 39 genes in microarray analysis. Esm1, Retnlb Mkks, and Grem2 showed particularly marked changes in gene expression in the SHHR-HFDS group. Compared with the SD-ND group, the SHHR-HFDS group had an increase in Mkks gene expression of about 26-fold and an approximately 22-fold increase in the expression of Grem2. Similarly, the expression of Esm1 increased by about 12-fold and that of Retnlg by about 10-fold as shown by quantitative real-time PCR. This study suggested that these four genes might be important in early atherosclerosis development.