Transcriptional analysis of sodium valproate and lithium in a serotonergic cell line

Sodium valproate (VPA) and lithium are mood stabilizers, widely prescribed in the treatment of bipolar disorder, and yet the precise modes of therapeutic action for these drugs are not fully understood. After exposure of the rat serotonergic cell line RN46A to VPA, RNA-sequencing (RNA-Seq) analysis showed widespread changes in gene expression but no changes with lithium. Analysis by multiple pipelines revealed that as many as 230 genes were significantly upregulated and 72 genes were significantly downregulated in response to VPA exposure. Differentiated RN46A cells were treated with 0.5mM each of VPA and lithium for 72 hours. Total RNA was extracted and polyA-enriched unstranded mRNA sequencing was carried out on Illumina HiSeq 2500.