Aneurismal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) is a neurovascular disease characterized by blood released into the subarachnoid space due to rupture of the cerebral arteries. After the onset of bleeding, secondary associated vasospasm (VSP) remains a dramatic side effect that causes severe comorbidities. We analyzed alterations in the expression profiles of arteries from a rat model of SAH using microarray and bioinformatics approaches. A single injection autologous blood rat model, previously characterized in our laboratory, was used. We performed a total RNA extraction and a microarray analysis of cerebral arteries from animals 7 days after surgery to study the delayed transcriptional changes induced by SAH. To assess the functional relationship between differently expressed genes, we run a combination of gene enrichment tools: GSEA, ClueGO, and ClusterProfiler. Our results showed that in SAH animals, the gene sets related to inflammation and immune system activation were up-regulated
genes related to the pathways involved in the regulation of muscle contraction had their expression disturbed
and the gene categories associated with DNA damage and repair were overrepresented. In conclusion, our results suggest that, after the SAH insult, multiple mechanisms, rather than a single cause, are activated at the same time in the cerebral vessels to trigger vascular alterations.