Genome-wide RNA-Seq analysis of mRNAs level under the action of melanocortin and tuftsin analogues in the norm and acute stress conditions at 3.5 hours after peptide injection
White 2-month-old male rats of the Wistar line (weight, 200-250 g) were used. The animals were divided into the "nonstressed after water administration" (NSW2), "nonstressed after MEHFPGP (ACTH(4-7)PGP, Semax) administration" (NSS2), "nonstressed after TKPRPGP (Selank) administration" (NSL2), "stressed after water administration" (SW2), "stressed after Semax administration" (SS2) and "stressed after Selank administration" (SL2) groups. Each group contained 3 animals. To rats of the NSS2 and SS2 groups, peptide Semax was administered intraperitoneally at a dose of 100 microg/kg. To rats of the NSL2 and SL2 groups peptide Selank was administered intraperitoneally at a dose of 300 microg/kg. To rats of the NSW2 and SW2 groups, sterile water was administered intraperitoneally at a dose of 1 ml/kg. 30 min after injections, the rats of SW2, SS2 and SL2 groups were submitted to acute restraint stress for 1 h (immobilization of animals combined with bright light and acoustic exposure). Also, all animals were tested using Elevated Plus-maze (within 5 min at 3 h after injection). Rats were withdrawn from the experiment at 3.5 h after injection. mRNA fraction from total RNA of rat hippocampus was used for high-throughput RNA-sequencing (RNA-Seq). Sequencing was carried out using an Illumina HiSeq 1500 instrument. At least 10 million reads (1/50 nt) were generated.