RNA-sequencing in rat ventral tegmental area (VTA) following chronic ethanol and withdrawal

The objective of The Center for Alcohol Research in Epigenetics (CARE) is to identify gene regulatory pathways in ventral tegmental area (VTA) that are altered in response to chronic ethanol administration and withdrawal. Adult male rats (6 per group)were used for each experimental group:control diet-fed, chronicethanol diet-fedand 24h withdrawal following chronic ethanol exposure. VTAtissues were dissected out and immediately frozen. Altogether, there was a total of 18 samples (3 groups x 6 rats). The RNAseq libraries were quantitated by qPCR and the 18 libraries were paired-end sequenced on 11 lanes (Illumina Hiseq 4000). Fastq files generated and demultiplexed with bcl2fastq and adaptor sequences were trimmed from the 3’-end of the reads.