Gene expression analysis of mouse BNST and blood cells after chronic social defeat stress (CSDS)

Chronic psychosocial stress is a risk factor for psychiatric disorders, and genetic factors interact in conferring susceptibility. The chronic social defeat stress (CSDS) mouse model allows identifying factors underlying resilience and susceptibility to chronic psychosocial stress. Following 10 days of CSDS, we collected the brain and blood tissues. We performed (1) AGO2 RNA immunoprecipitation-sequencing (AGO2 RIP-seq) of active miRNAs and their mRNA targets in the BNST. Additionally, we carried out RNA-seq and miRNA-seq from blood cells. Overall design: We performed ribo-zero globin depletion of RNA from blood cells. Immunoprecipitation of AGO2-bound miRNAs and their target mRNAs was done by pooling of 3 BNST collected from all the phenotypic groups in both strains. We sequenced with Illumina Next-seq 500 from (1) BNST AGO2 mRNA (C57BL/6Crl: control n = 5, resilient n = 5, susceptible n = 4), (2) BNST AGO2 miRNA (C57BL/6Crl: control n = 5 , resilient n =5 , susceptible n = 3), (3) blood cels mRNA (C57BL/6Crl: control n = 5, resilient n = 5, susceptible n = 5; DBA/2Crl: control n = 5, susceptible n = 5), (4) blood cels miRNA (C57BL/6Crl: control n = 5, resilient n = 5, susceptible n = 5; DBA/2Crl: control n = 5, susceptible n = 5) 6-8 days after the last CSDS.