Chronic hypercapnia-induced gene expression profiles in the brain

To test the hypothesis that increasing severity of chronic hypercapnia elicits distint gene expression profiles in important brainstem regions of cardiorespiratory control, three groups of goats (female; n=6/group) were exposed either 14 days of room air (RA), 14 days of 6% inspired CO2 (mild CH), or 7d of 6% InCO2 followed by 7d of 8% InCO2 (moderate CH). Following 14 days of exposure 4 target sites were collected (3 brainstem/1 cortical) for gene expression profiling analysis using bulk-tissue RNA-sequencing. Comparisons were made across all target sites comparing room air animals to either mild or moderate CH. Overall design: Comparative gene expression analysis of RNA-seq data from 4 brain regions (mPFC, NTS, VRC, RTN) collected from animals (n=6/condition) exposed one of 3 different conditions (normal room air,mild CH, or moderate CH). Comparisons were made for RA vs. Mild or RA vs. Moderate CH across all 4 brain regions.