Gene expression in microglia cells related to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

The research was conducted by in-vitro experiments on microglial cells, performed by Wildman lab and Uddin research group in the College of Public Health at the University of the South Florida. The experiments mimic the trauma-related immune environments by utilizing stress hormones. Stress hormones can modify individual internal environment during times of stress, mobilizing energy sources, increasing heart rate, and downregulating metabolic processes In this experiment, we adopt dexamethasone and hydrocortisone as stress hormones, which serve as treat- ments on microglial cells. In addition, we include alcohol as an additional treatment to distinguish whether gene expression is changed solely because of a random treat- ment (i.e. alcohol) as opposed to stress hormones treatments. Microglial cells were grown in media supplemented with one of the following treatments: dexamethasone (dex), hydrocortisone (cort), alcohol (vehicle) or control (only media). After the microglia cells were exposed to different treatments for three days, the RNA-seq data was extracted from microglial cells on day 3 and on the final day of washout (day 6). Our goal is to detect the genes in microglia cells which are differentially expressed when exposed to stress hormones. In addition, we investigate whether the dosage of the stress hormone affects the genes’ expression levels.