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Stellate Ganglion Transcriptomics in Mice Reveal Sex Differences
Author(s) -
Bayles Richard,
Fei Suzanne S.,
Gao Lina,
Habecker Beth
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2018.32.1_supplement.730.3
Subject(s) - transcriptome , biology , gene , hepatic stellate cell , stellate ganglion , genetics , gene expression , endocrinology , pathology , medicine , alternative medicine
A large number of studies have demonstrated physiological sex differences in the brains of rodents, however the peripheral nervous system is understudied. Stellate ganglia are of particular interest because the majority of sympathetic neurons innervating the heart reside there. The cardiovascular risk profiles in men and women are different. Transcriptomics provide a powerful tool for identifying genomic differences that may contribute to sympathetic dysfunction in disease. Aim To compare the transcriptomes of healthy stellate ganglia from adult male and female mice. Method RNA‐sequencing was carried out on individual stellate ganglia from 18‐week male and female C57Bl6J mice (n = 6 vs 6). Sequencing was carried out in an Illumina HiSeq 2500 at the Massively Parallel Sequencing Shared Resource (OHSU). Raw sequence data was aligned to the reference genome and analysed by the OHSU ONPRC Biostatistics & Bioinformatics Core. Results When comparing the stellate ganglia of males and females, the overall transcriptomic profile including the most highly expressed genes was similar. A subset of genes was different between the sexes however. Following differential expression analysis, at a strict threshold of FDRp‐value <0.05, there were 12 genes with significantly greater expression in females, and 9 genes with significantly greater expression in males. While the largest differences could be attributed to sex chromosome genes, other genes were unexpected. There was a significant difference between the sexes in expression of the genes encoding the TrkC receptor ( Ntrk3 ), the axonal guidance factor netrin G1 ( Ntng1 ), and the Chagas' related transcription factor Cha ( Tcfl5 ). These differences and others including a number of ion channels were confirmed by real‐time qPCR. Conclusion Differences in gene expression were identified between male and female stellate ganglia. These differences may translate to sex specific differences in the physiology of sympathetic nerves, with relevance to a number of cardiovascular diseases. Support or Funding Information Supported by: NIH OT2TR001984, OHSU School of Medicine Dean's Fund This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .