A RNA-Seq Analysis of the Rat Supraoptic Nucleus Transcriptome: Effects of Salt Loading on Gene Expression.

Magnocellular neurons (MCNs) in the hypothalamo-neurohypophysial system (HNS) are highly specialized to release large amounts of Arginine vasopressin (Avp) or Oxytocin (Oxt) into the blood stream and play critical roles in the regulation of body fluid homeostasis. The MCNs are osmosensory neurons and are excited by exposure to hypertonic solutions and inhibited by hypotonic solutions. The MCNs respond to systemic hypertonic and hypotonic stimulation with large changes in the expression of their Avp and Oxt genes, and microarray studies have shown that these osmotic perturbations also cause large changes in global gene expression in the HNS. Biosample data submitted represents the gene expression in the rat supraoptic nucleus (SON) under normosmotic and chronic salt-loading (SL) conditions.