Abstract 20437: Gene Expression Profiling Identifies Differentially Expressed Genes in Cardiac Allograft Vasculopathy

BACKGROUND: Coronary angiography is the current gold standard for screening and diagnosis of cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV). Given the invasiveness and marginal sensitivity associated with angiography, minimally invasive sensitive biomarkers are needed to identify CAV early. The goal of our study is to determine differentially expressed genes in CAV that may serve as targets for biomarker development. Methods: Gene expression profiling and transcriptome analysis using Illumina HiSeq 2000, was performed on 23 cardiac transplant recipients (12 severe CAV ISHLT grade 3 and 11 without CAV) who were matched by age, gender, and duration of transplant. Fastqc, Tophat, Samtools, and CuffDiff were utilized for quality control of raw reads, mapping short reads to reference genomes and testing differential expression between healthy subjects and transplant subject, respectively. Pathway analysis to identify molecular pathways that show expression change in transplant recipients was done using ingenuity pathway...