Time course of the response to ACTH in pig: biological and transcriptomic study

To explore individual variation in the biological response to cortisol, the main stress hormone, in pigs, we have developed a microarray analysis to study the kinetics of the response to an ACTH injection measured at 4 time points. ACTH is a hormone secreted by the pituitary gland and triggering the release of cortisol by the adrenal glands in response to a stress. The objective was to identify genes up- or down-regulated during the stress response triggered by cortisol in the whole blood.