Gene expression changes in adult hippocampal neural stem cells following platelet factor 4 treatment

The study was designed to determine the transcriptomic changes that occur in hippocampal neural stem cells following treatment with platelet factor 4, an exerkine released into the blood following physical exercise. The experiment is part of a project that aims to identify changes that are initiated in the hippocampal neural stem cell niche following exercise in mice.Primary cells isolated from the dentate gyrus of 8-week-old C57BL/6J mice were treated with saline or platelet factor 4. After 1.5 h, the cells were stained with epidermal growth factor (EGF) complexed to AlexaFluor 647 streptavidin to label neural stem cells. EGF+ neural stem cells and EGF- niche cells were collected using flow cytometry, followed by immediate RNA collection. cDNA was prepared, and a library preparation performed, before the samples were sequenced using the Illumina Nova Seq 6000 sequencing system. The workflow allows identification of potential transcriptional changes between Saline and platelet factor 4-treated samples in both EGF+ adult neural stem cells and EGF- niche cells.