RNA-seq on enriched cardiac fibroblasts from the hearts of Hif-1a conditional knockout or heterozygous mice

In this project we explore the role of the master hypoxia regulator, Hypoxia inducible factor-1alpha (Hif-1a), in governing cardiac fibroblast (CF) function in homeostasis. CF-specific Hif-1a conditional knockout (cKO) mice were generated by breeding Pdgfra-merCremer (PdgfraMCM/+) Cre recombinase driver mice with Hif-1a-floxed mice (Hif-1aflox/). In Hif-1afl/-; PdgfraMCM/+ progeny, Hif-1a could be conditionally deleted in adult CFs by tamoxifen (tam) administration. We also introduced a Cre-dependent R26tdTomato reporter allele allowing marking of Pdgfra+ CFs and their progeny. In this experiment, we performed bulk RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) on tdTomato+ cells from the hearts of healthy cKO or heterozygous (HET) adult, male mice.