Quantitation of cardiac messenger RNA in heart-muscle biopsies.

A method has been developed that allows the direct quantitation of cardiac messenger RNA in heart-muscle biopsies. This provides a new tool to directly assess changes in cardiac gene expression in cardiac biopsies. Using this method, we have analyzed changes in cardiac gene expression during induction and regression of triiodothyronine-induced heart hypertrophy, during development of heart atrophy secondary to starvation and protein depletion, in adriamycin cardiomyopathy, and in patients with mitral-valve diseases.