The circadian profile of the transcriptomes in murine tissues was compared between groups of young and old male mice. The oscillatory phase and absolute expression levels were evaluated as a function of biological age. Distinct differences in multiple pathways were apparent based on biological and circadian time in a tissue specific manner.
Overall design
A total of 18 young (5 month) and old (24 month) C57BL/6 mice were acclimated to a set 12 hr light dark cycle and fed ad lib on standard lab chow for 2 weeks in the PBRC Comparative Biology Core Facility. Five days prior to the study, the mice were converted to constant darkness (red light) regimen. On the day of the study, mice were euthanized by CO2 asphyxiation after ad lib feeding overnight in groups of 3 animals per young or old cohort at 4 hr intervals beginning at 7 AM and ending at 3 AM on a single day (July, 2009). The body weight of each animal was recorded prior to dissection of the following tissues: brown adipose tissue (BAT), inguinal white adipose tissue (iWAT), and liver. Individual tissues were weighed prior to freezing in liquid nitrogen. Samples were stored at -80oC until use.Total RNA was isolated from the BAT, eWAT, and liver tissues using TriReagent (MRC, Cincinnati OH) in accordance with the manufacturer’s recommendations. The Illumina TotalPrep RNA Amplification Kit (Applied Biosystems Inc., Foster City, CA, Catalog #AMIL1791) was used to create labeled cRNA from 750ng of input total RNA according to the manufacturer’s protocol. The labeled cRNA samples were then assessed for quality and quantity using a NanoDrop and an Agilent Bioanalyzer. The MouseWG-6 v2 Beadchip (Illumina Sentrix Beadchip Array #11278593) contains 45,200 transcripts and allows 6 samples to be interrogated in parallel. 1.5ug of each labeled cRNA was hybridized to each array according to the manufacturer's protocol. Experimental group samples were distributed randomly across all beadchips. After an 18 hour hybridization at 58°C, the beadchips were processed according to manufacturer’s protocol and scanned using an Illumina BeadArray Reader (Illumina, Inc., San Diego, CA).
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