Sequencing of murine corticotrophs from male and female POMC-GFP mice.

Stress-related illness represents a major burden on health and society. Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying stress responses is an important step to understand these diseases, and design treatments. Sexual dimorphism in stress responses have been extensively reported, with depression and most anxiety disorders being more prevalent in women. Corticotrophs of the anterior pituitary play a central role in the generation of hormonal stress responses, by secreting the stress hormone ACTH in response to stressful stimuli. However, their role in contributing to sexually dimorphic responses of the HPA axis is very poorly understood. We performed bulk RNA-sequencing of FACS-sorted corticotrophs from male and female POMC-GFP mice to determine the molecular determinants of sexual dimorphic traits in the activity of these cells, revealing extensive differential gene expression at the transcriptional level. This includes more than 71 mRNAs encoding ion channel subunits, which could be involved in the generation of the sexual dimorphism in their electrical activity.