Figure 1.

Sex-specific transcriptional profiles are associated with the acquisition of PTSD-like fear memories in the amygdala

(A) Adult male and female mice underwent cued-fear conditioning (or the control condition) after which they were tested for cued-fear expression 24 h later; another group was sacrificed within 15 min of fear conditioning to obtain the amygdala.

(B) RNA from the amygdala of adult male and female mice from both experimental groups (control or cued-fear) was subsequently pooled (3–4 individuals per pool or 12 individuals per condition) for indirect (Illumina) and direct (Oxford Nanopore) sequencing.

(C) Face validity of the cued fear conditioning paradigm was verified in male and female mice, which showed strong expression of conditioned fear responses. ANOVA, ∗∗∗p < 0.001 relative to non-fear-conditioned controls, ∗∗p < 0.01 for male- versus female-conditioned mice. Data are represented as mean ± SEM (n = 7–10/group).

(D) Differential gene expression in the amygdala of male mice; blue points represent significantly downregulated genes; yellow points represent significantly upregulated genes, and gray points represent nonsignificant genes. Thresholds for DESeq2: |FC|>20% and FDR <0.05. (E) Top 10 differentially expressed genes in male-conditioned mice.

(F) qPCR validation for selected differentially expressed genes in males.