Beta-hydroxybutyrate Infusion Identifies Acute Differentially Expressed Genes Related to Metabolism and Reproduction in the Hypothalamus and Pituitary of Sheep

To identify molecular pathways of metabolic imbalances and reproduction, 10 castrated male sheep were randomly assigned to be injected into the lateral ventricle through intracerebroventricular cannulas with 1 mL of β-hydroxybutyric acid sodium salt solution (BHB; 12,800 µmol/L) or saline solution (CON; 0.9% NaCl). Approximately two hours post injection, sheep were humanely euthanized, and hypothalamus and pituitary tissues were harvested for transcriptome characterization using RNA-sequencing. Ribonucleic acid (RNA) was extracted from the hypothalamus and pituitary and sequenced at a high depth (Hypothalamus: 468,912,732 reads; Pituitary: 515,106,092 reads) using the Illumina Hi-Seq 2500 platform and aligned to Bos taurus and Ovis aries genomes. Of the total raw reads, 87% (hypothalamus) and 90.5% (pituitary) mapped to the reference Ovis aries genome. Within these read sets, approximately 56% in hypothalamus and 69% in pituitary mapped to either known or putative protein coding genes. Fragments per Kilob...