Transcriptional regulation of brain gene expression in response to a territorial intrusion

We investigated the transcriptomic response to territorial intrusion in four regions of the brain (telencephalon, diencephalon, cerebellum and brain stem) of a teleost fish, the threespined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). We tested the hypothesis that gene regulatory networks modulate the transcriptional response to territorial intrusion in the different brain regions and thereby aggressive behavior. Indeed, transcription regulatory network analysis identified cis-regulatory transcription factor motifs enriched in upregulated genes in one brain region and downregulated in the others. We further validated our findings by showing that many of the differentially expressed genes in the diencephalon were positively correlated with levels of aggression in individual males. 2 conditions: control fish and fish that experienced intrusion into their territory, Biological replicates 5.Four brain regions. Sample 4BS was excluded from the analysis during data preprocessing because it was an outlier.