Transcriptomic atlas reveals organ-specific disease tolerance in sickle cell mice. Dataset for HbSS livers injected or not with heme

The objective of this experiment was to explore the transcriptome of the HbSS Townes mouse model of sickle cell disease. Townes model mice carry several human hemoglobin knock-in genes replacing the endogenous mouse genes and may be useful in studying sickle cell disease. All mice were genotyped, age- and sex-matched littermates. All HbAA (control, normal human hemoglobin) vs HbSS (sickle cell disease, mutated human hemoglobin) mice were used for experimentations at 6-8 weeks of age, to limit intra-group heterogeneity. Hemin (Ferriprotoporphyrin IX) was purchased from Frontiers Scientific and injected intravenously (iv.) in a retroorbital sinus at a concentration of 24 µmol/kg. Control mice received PBS instead. Mice were anesthetized with isoflurane 2-3% for injections, blood collection and sacrifice. All mice were sacrificed by cervical dislocation, 4 hours after injection.

The results of livers (indicated foie) from HbSS mice injected or not with heme are presented here. 

The results of livers (indicated foie) from HbAA mice injected or not with heme can be found at number 10.5281/zenodo.10963640. 

Thirty μm-thick frozen tissue sections of livers were cut as above and homogenized in 200μL of 1-Thioglycerol/Homogenization Solution (Maxwell® 16 LEV simplyRNA Tissue Kit Promega AS1280). The quality and quantity of mRNA were evaluated using a 2100 bioanalyzer with TNA 6000 NanoKits (all Agilent Technologies, Palo Alto, CA, USA). RNA Integrity Numbers superior to 7 were eligible for subsequent reverse transcription into cDNA. RNAseq was performed at the GenomIC plateform Cochin Institute INSERM U1016. After RNA extraction, RNA quality (RNA integrity number) was estimated. 1μg of high-quality total RNA sample (RIN >7) was processed to build up the libraries, using TruSeq Stranded mRNA kit (Illumina) according to manufacturer instructions. Briefly, purified poly-A containing mRNA molecules were fragmented and reverse-transcribed using random primers. Replacement of dTTP by dUTP during second strand synthesis allowed us to achieve strand specificity. Addition of a single A base to the cDNA was followed by ligation of Illumina adapters.
Libraries were quantified by qPCR using KAPA Library Quantification Kits for Illumina Libraries (KapaBiosystems, Wilmington, MA). Library profiles were assessed using DNA High Sensitivity LabChip kits on an Agilent Bioanalyzer. Libraries were sequenced on an Illumina Nextseq 500 instrument using 75 base-lengths read V2 chemistry in a paired-end mode. After sequencing, primary analysis based on AOZAN software (ENS, Paris), was applied to demultiplex and control the quality of the raw data (based of FastQC modules / version 0.11.5).

The dataset here represents 4 groups of mice, 4 mice per group as follows: HbAA PBS, HbAA heme, HbSS PBS, HbSS heme.