RNA-seq analysis of archived blood and skin from common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) health assessments in the northern Gulf of Mexico, 2013-06-17 to 2018-07-20

Marine mammal health researchers use many standard veterinary panels, methods, and immune biomarkers, but there are likely additional biomarkers of health and toxicity that would further inform health assessments. Transcriptomic analysis is a powerful tool examining the molecular alterations that underlie toxic responses and disease and can yield extremely sensitive biomarkers. Archived blood (n = 76) and skin (n = 28) samples collected during common bottlenose dolphin health assessments in Barataria Bay, Louisiana and Sarasota, Florida from 2013-06-17 to 2018-07-20, were analyzed by RNA-seq to support and enhance the assessment of animal health. The raw sequence data and FPKM (fragments per kilobase of transcript per million mapped reads) values generated by sequence processing can be found by searching https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi for GSE138765 (blood) and GSE138935 (skin) or the individual accession numbers provided in the read me information.