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Series GSE3310

Query DataSets for GSE3310

Status

Public on Sep 17, 2005

Title

Aging laryngeal muscle: shifts in gene expression patterns and function

Organism

Rattus norvegicus

Experiment type

Expression profiling by array

Summary

Sarcopenia is the decreased muscle mass and weakness associated with aging and a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the elderly. To what extent non-locomotive muscles are susceptible to this condition is unclear. For example, age affects laryngeal function (ventilation, airway protective reflexes, swallowing and phonation). Age-related laryngeal dysfunction may be due to effects on its intrinsic muscles that have a unique phenotype: very small, mostly fast oxidative muscle fibers. For this study, we examined how age alters the functional characteristics and gene expression profile of posterior cricoarytenoid (PCA), an intrinsic laryngeal muscle. PCA muscles from Fischer 344-Brown Norway F1 hybrid rats (6 and 30 months of age) were used for cDNA microarrays, light and electron (EM) microscopy, and in vitro contractile function. Histological analyses demonstrated a ~40% increase in mean PCA fiber size and in the number of fibers with low myosin ATPase activity. There was also evidence of ragged-red fibers, a hallmark of mitochondrial dysfunction. In turn, mitochondrial volume density, determined by EM, was significantly higher in PCA muscles at 30 months (43% vs. 21% at 6 months). In vitro function showed a decrease in velocity of unloaded shortening at 30 months. Finally, cDNA microarrays demonstrated a transcriptome shift in PCA muscle with age. Gene classes with the largest changes were: signal transduction, transcription factors, and metabolic enzymes. These data demonstrate that PCA muscles are significantly altered by age. Moreover, the observed changes in muscle fiber size, mitochondrial content and gene expression profile suggest that the PCA response to age diverges from that seen in more typical skeletal muscles.
Keywords: aging, time course

Overall design

Total RNA was obtained with TRIzol (Invitrogen Carlsbad, CA) following the manufacturers recommended protocol. Tissues from 4 animals were combined into each RNA sample to decrease inter-subject variability. Biotinylated cRNA samples were hybridized to Affymetrix Rat Genome U34 gene chips (n=9 chips) described previously [McMullen et al. 2004]. Microarrays were washed and stained with a streptavidin-bound marker and scanned. Data were analyzed with Affymetrix Microarray Suite 5.0 software. Only genes with consistent absent/present calls in all three independent replicates per group were considered for further analysis. Comparisons used the 6-mo transcriptome as the baseline and the one-sided Wilcoxon’s signed rank test to estimate “increase/no change/ decrease” difference calls for each pair-wise comparison. Only difference calls consistent in all pair-wise comparisons and with average changes > 1.70 were considered significant, resulting in a conservative list of genes with changed expression levels. Functional classification of genes was based on an extensive literature review.

Contributor(s)

McMullen CA, Andrade FH

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Submission date

Sep 15, 2005

Last update date

Feb 21, 2017

Contact name

Colleen A McMullen

E-mail(s)

Colleen.McMullen@uky.edu