Gene Expression Profiling of Rat Hippocampus Following Exposure to the Acetylcholinesterase Inhibitor Soman

Male Sprague-Dawley rats were pretreated with the oxime HI-6 (l-(((4-aminocarbonyl)pyridinio)methoxyl)methyI)-2-((hydroxyimino)methyl)-pyridinium dichloride; 125 mg/kg, ip) 30 min prior to challenge with soman (180 μg/kg, sc; diluted with 0.9% sodium chloride). One minute after soman challenge, animals were treated with atropine methyl nitrate (2.0 mg/kg, im). Vehicle control animals (n=4; 2 euthanized at 1h, 1 euthanized at 12h, and 1 euthanized at 24h) received an equivalent volume of vehicle (0.9% sodium chloride), HI-6 and atropine. Naïve animals (n=3) were also included in the study and received no treatments. Hippocampal tissue was harvested 1, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 72, 96, and 168h after soman exposure. A sample size of n=3 was used for all time points except 3h (n=6) and 72h (n=4). RNA was extracted from the hippocampal tissue and used to generate oligonucleotide microarray probes for gene expression profiling using Affymetrix Rat 230 2.0 microarrays.