Meeting Abstract
We investigated the effects of 30 minutes of restraint stress on the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (i.e. reproductive) axis of rock doves (Columba livia) using high-throughput sequencing technology. We constructed an annotated de novo transcriptome assembly of the hypothalamus, pituitary, and gonadal tissues of both male and female doves. Using RNAseq, we characterized patterns of expression for each tissue and report differentially expressed genes and gene networks between groups and sexes. We also assessed the relationship between circulating corticosterone concentrations and differential transcriptome expression in response to restraint stress. These data offer a foundation on which future hypothesis-driven approaches and examinations of bidirectional interactions between genes and the stress response can occur.
