Objective: To understand whether there are genes differentially expressed in association with heat adaptation in resting heat-adapted rats at normal temperature, and to evaluate the feasibility of investigating heat adaptation mechanism in light of gene differential expression.
Methods: The mRNAs were extracted from rat liver tissues and reverse transcripted into double-strand cDNAs. Suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) was applied to compare the gene expression profiles between heat adaptation group and normal temperature control group, and cDNA subtraction libraries of the differentially expressed genes were constructed. PCR-selective differential screening technique was used to identify the differentially expressed genes.
Results: Six cDNA fragments were identified in the preliminary experiment to be differentially expressed.
Conclusions: There are genes differentially expressed in the liver of resting heat-adapted rats in association with heat adaptation at normal temperature, and these genes may be involved in maintaining heat adaptation. This study also indicates the feasibility of investigating heat adaptation mechanism by isolating differentially expressed genes associated with heat adaptation.