Brain region and sex specific transcriptome of peripubertal stress induced adult male mice showing escalated aggression and adult female mice with no signs of aggression.. Brain region and sex specific transcriptome of peripubertal stress induced adult male mice showing escalated aggression and adult female mice with no signs of aggression.

Purpose: The goal of this study is to uncover the molecular basis of peripubertal stress induced aggressive behaviour and its sex differences focussing on brain region specific transcriptome profiling (RNA-seq) and validation by quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT–PCR) Methods: Hypothalamus (Hypo) and Prefrontal cortex (PFC) mRNA profiles of 90-day-old control adult male and female and PPS exposed escalated aggressive adult male (SEagg) mice and non aggressive adult female (SNagg) were sequenced on Illumina HiSeq 2500, in 3 biological replicates.The FASTQ sequencing reads were adapter-trimmed along with a minimum length cut-off of 50 bases using Prinseq-lite. The reads were aligned to mouse genome assembly using TopHat (v.2.0.11) followed by reference-based assembly using Cufflinks (v.2.2.1). Then differentially expressing transcripts were identified using Cuffdiff (v.2.2.1). qRT–PCR validation was performed using SYBR Green assays. Results:Hypo of SEagg males showed 49 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) amongst which 28 were down-regulated, 20 were up-regulated and 1 was expressed in SEagg males but not in control males. PFC of SEagg males showed 87 DEGs amongst which 57 were downregulated, 28 were upregulated and 2 were only expressed in SEagg males but not control males. SNagg females showed 684 DEGs in Hypo and 152 DEGs in PFC when compared to their respective control samples. Conclusions: We provide the first prefrontal cortex and hypothalamus specific transcriptome profiles of peripubertal stress (PPS) exposed, Balb/c adult male mice exhibiting escalated aggression and Balb/c adult female mice showing no signs of aggression. Overall design: Brain mRNA profiles of peripubertal stress exposed adult male and female mice.