Changes in miRNA expression in circulating whole blood resutling from exposure to neurotoxic doses of D-amphetamine

These experiments were designed to compare the miRNA expression in whole circulating blood in animals exposed to D-amphetamine to the expression under control condition. This is the final set of RNA seq data to be generated by the experiments that have previously generated mRNA transcriptomes (GSE62368 and GSE64778). The study objectives were to detect miRNA changes in blood resulting from a neurotoxic exposure to amphetamine that may result from organ and tissue damage or immune function changes Amphetamine effects on gene expression are dependent on body temperature and indicate that many significant changes in genes related to the immune system occur, some likely in response to damage, even when animals remain normothermic during amphetamine exposure. Also, hyperthermia alone produces many changes in immune related genes in blood The study was conducted in adult male Sprague Dawly rats comprised of seven saline controls and seven amphetamine exposed rats. Four injections of amphetamine were sequentially given with 2 h between each injection. Dosing started at 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. The AMPH group became very hyperthermic during dosing, which is necessary to produce both neurotoxicity ti Animals were sacrificed 9 h after the first injection. Five ml of blood was obtained from cardiac puncture, separated into multiple aliquots and snap frozen on dry ice. Total RNA from the blood was later isolated using the Triazole method. Details of RNA extraction and processing in PLoS One. 2015 Jul 15;10(7):e0133315. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0133315. eCollection 2015