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Figure 1. Effects of tamoxifen and MerCreMer on cardiac function, phenotype and transcriptome. Tamoxifen inducible MerCreMer expression did not cause changes in cardiac function and histology in mice at four weeks of age. Nonetheless, small, but transient changes in cardiac transcriptome in response to tamoxifen and MerCreMer expression were observed. (A) Tamoxifen was injected at 14 days to Myh6-MerCreMer mice. Wild-type mice lacking Myh6-MerCreMer were used as controls. (B) Cardiac function was assessed by echocardiography at four weeks of age prior to the sacrifice of mice. Hearts were harvested to determine cardiac fibrosis, apoptosis and DNA damage. Cardiac transcriptome profile was also assessed in the hearts of these mice. (C) Modest, but transient increases in interferon response and TP53 pathway were observed.