Genome wide identification of gene sets involved in the regulation of hypothalamic pubertal development

Gene expression analysis of hypothalami from female animals at different juvenile developmental reproductive stages. Results provide insight into the role of the hypothalamus in controlling the onset of puberty. SD rats were housed (8/cage) in a controlled environment and euthanized at different ages (PND=7, PND=14, Early Juvenile: 21 days, Late Juvenile: 28 days, Late Proestus (the day of first ovulation): 30-33 days. Rats were anesthetized and brains were rapidly removed. The medial basal hypothalamus (MBH) was dissected away from the rest of the brain and flash frozen. Total RNA was isolated from each sample using Qiagen's RNeasy Mini Kit (Valencia, CA). Samples were bioanalyzed on a RNA 6000 Nano chip kit to check for integrity and concentration before sending it to OHSU's Massively Parallel Sequencing Shared Resource for library preparation and sequencing.