Three male 8-week-old Wistar rats were used. The peroneal nerve of the animals was transected and sutured to the biceps femoris muscle. Four weeks later, the proximal stump was sutured to the distal stump. The animals survived for 8 weeks. All experiments were performed under Ketanest (ketamine hydrochloride, Essex Pharma GmbH, Munich, Germany; 100 mg/kg) and Rompun (xylazine hydrochloride, Bayer, Leverkusen, Germany; 10 mg/kg) anesthesia. Both substances were injected intraperitoneally. RNA was extracted from the ipsilateral and contralateral tibialis anterior muscles of each animal. The gene array analysis compared the ipsilateral muscle with the contralateral muscle of each animal.
