Bulk RNA sequencing of neonatal rat white matter following intrauterine Escherichia coli infection

Intrauterine infection is a major risk factor for preterm birth and neonatal white matter injury. To investigate transcriptomic alterations associated with intrauterine Escherichia coli infection, bulk RNA sequencing was performed on white matter tissue isolated from postnatal day 7 (P7) neonatal rat brains. Total RNA was extracted and quality-assessed prior to library construction. Poly(A)+ mRNA was enriched and sequenced on an Illumina platform using paired-end reads. Clean reads were aligned to the rat reference genome, and gene expression levels were quantified.