Gene expression patterns in the horned beetles Onthophagus taurus responding to nutritional variation

This is a study on genome-wide transcriptional responses to nutritional variation and their dependency on trait and sex in the beetle Onthophagus taurus. This study compares the gene expression level of 16 conditions in Onthophagus taurus. Briefly, we compared two nutritional conditions (optimal and sub-optimal) of male and female animals by using 4 different body regions (2x2x4). Each condition includes pooled RNA samples from 4 animals (64 animals in total). We used the square combining table for the effectiveness of comparisons, which allowed us to generate 48 pairs of comparisons without sacrificing robustness of analyses. These comparisons include biological replicates as well as dye-swaps.