Loss of bhlha9 impairs thermotaxis and formalin-evoked pain in a sexually dimorphic manner

This RNA-Seq experiment aims at unraveling the sets of genes that may be deregulated in a specific subset of sensory neurons (the C-Low Threshold MechanoReceptors or C-LTMRs), in absence of transcription factor bhlha9. In this study, we show that the transcription factor bhlha9 is expressed in a subset of adult C-LTMRs. Moreover, we show that bhlha9 KO males but not female displayed impaired thermotaxis behavior in the temperature gradient paradigm and exhibited exacerbated pain hypersensitivity in the formalin test. To address this question, we FACS-sorted C-LTMRs from adult WT and bhlha9 KO males and females and extracted the total RNA. Further RNA-deep sequencing is a major step to pin-point the sets of genes deregulated selectively in these neurons, in absence of bhlha9. Overall design: FACS-sorted C-LTMRs from adult WT and bhlha9 KO males and females from two biological replicates of each genotype and sex, total RNA extracted and sequenced