Genome-wide RNA-Seq analysis of mRNAs level under the action of melanocortin and tuftsin analogues in the norm and acute stress conditions at 6 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 vehicle administration" (NSW6), "nonstressed after MEHFPGP (ACTH(4-7)PGP, Semax) administration" (NSS6), "nonstressed after TKPRPGP (Selank) administration" (NSL6), "stressed after vehicle administration" (SW6), "stressed after Semax administration" (SS6) and "stressed after Selank administration" (SL6) groups. Each group contained 3 animals. To rats of the NSS6 and SS6 groups, peptide Semax was administered intraperitoneally at a dose of 100 microg/kg. To rats of the NSL6 and SL6 groups peptide Selank was administered intraperitoneally at a dose of 300 microg/kg. Rats of the NSC and STC groups received intraperitoneal injection of vehicle (sterile distilled water in a volume of 1 ml/kg body weight). 30 min after injections, the rats of SW6, SS6 and SL6 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) and Elevated Zero-maze (within 5 min at 5.5 h after stress). Rats were withdrawn from the experiment at 6 h after injection (4.5 h after stress exposure). 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.