Testosterone effects on the HVC transcriptome of adult female European robins (Erithacus rubecula)

Female European robins routinely sing during the winter season, a time when they defend feeding territories and also show elevated circulating testosterone levels. We used wild female European robins captured during fall to examine the effects of testosterone administration on the transcriptome of the song control nucleus HVC (proper name). Robins were caught during fall, housed at short day cycles in sound-proofed recoding boxes and songs were recorded continously. A testosterone-teated robin was sacrificed one day after detection of the first high amplitude notes with a frequency above 15 kHz. Therefore, duration of testosterone treatment varied between samples. An individual of the control group was sacrificed on the same day to ensure a time-matched sampling of individuals from both groups. The differential gene expression in the HVC of 5 control and 6 testosterone birds was analyzed using the group-wise exhaustive analysis with False Discovery Rate set to zero and 10-significant probe minimum coverage. ChipInspector carries out significance analysis on the single probe level. Normalized probe set level data not provided for individual Sample records. Processed data is available on Series record.