Sex-specific transcriptomic and epitranscriptomic signatures of PTSD-like fear acquisition.

Abstract

Our understanding of the molecular pathology of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is rapidly evolving and is being driven by advances in sequencing techniques. Conventional short-read RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) is a central tool in transcriptomics research that enables unbiased gene expression profiling. With the recent emergence of Oxford Nanopore direct RNA-seq (dRNA-seq), it is now also possible to interrogate diverse RNA modifications, collectively known as the epitranscriptome. Here, we present our analyses of the male and female mouse amygdala transcriptome and epitranscriptome, obtained using parallel Illumina RNA-seq and Oxford Nanopore dRNA-seq, associated with the acquisition of PTSD-like fear induced by Pavlovian cued-fear conditioning. We report significant sex-specific differences in the amygdala transcriptional response during fear acquisition, and a range of shared and dimorphic epitranscriptomic signatures. Differential RNA modifications are enriched among mRNA transcripts associated with neurotransmitter regulation and mitochondrial function, many of which have been previously implicated in PTSD. Very few differentially modified transcripts are also differentially expressed, suggesting an influential, expression-independent role for epitranscriptional regulation in PTSD-like fear-acquisition. Overall, our application of conventional and newly developed methods provides a platform for future work that will lead to new insights into and therapeutics for PTSD.