Hypoxia/reoxygenation stress modulates microRNAs in the hearts of sickle cell mice. (A) Relative expression of microRNAs from the hearts obtained from AA or SS mice under normoxia or H/R conditions. Expression of miRNAs was determined with quantitative polymerase chain reaction and normalized using U6SNRNA, RNU5G, RNU1A1, and SNORD61 as housekeeping small noncoding RNAs. Results are mean ± SEM from 3 separate mice. ∗P < .05; ∗∗P < .01 (1-way ANOVA). (B-C) Heat map and volcano plot showing fold change (FC) in the relative expression of miRNAs in the hearts of AA and SS mice under H/R compared with normoxia. Expression of microRNAs was determined (from n = 5 mice per condition). Dotted lines in the volcano plot represents cutoff values for significant (P < .05) differentially expressed (–0.58 > log2 FC > 0.58) in SS hearts under H/R compared with AA hearts under H/R. (D) IPA networks generated interrogating proteins targets of differentially expressed miRNAs in SS hearts under H/R stress.
