Singing female songbirds: Female-specific gene networks in the song area HVC

In this data set, we compared the expression data of song nuclei HVC, visual cortex entopallium, and the molecular layer of the cerebellum dissected from females and males of 3 songbird species (S. canaria, U. cyanocephalus, P. bicolor) to identify sex-specific stimulated gene expression. Testosterone-treated male and female canaries were also included in order to study whether testosterone effect on transcriptomes is sex-specific. Finally, testosterone-treated female canaries were compared with a rare group of spontaneously singing female canaries to study whether testosterone stimulation would be different from natural stimulation. A total of 36 Female and 30 male HVC, 35 female and 30 male entopallium, and 12 female and male cerebellum (molecular layer) from 3 songbird species (S. canaria, U. cyanocephalus, P. bicolor) were sampled. The transcriptomes were compared by 2 approches: 1) male-to-female from the same species/breeding status/testosterone treatment, 2) HVC-to-entopallium of the same group. The differential expression was analyzed using ChipInspector (Genomatix) with group-wise exhaustive method, False Discovery Rate was set to zero and the minimum significant probe coverage was set at 10. ChipInspector carries out significance analysis on the single probe level (not provided), instead, the normalized transcript level data are included in the Sample tables.