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Prenatal benzene exposure in mice alters offspring hypothalamic development predisposing to metabolic disease in later life

GSE229440 Mus musculus (mouse) RNA-seq (gene expression) 33 samples Submitted 2025/07/03 Platform GPL24247
At a glance

RNA-seq (gene expression) · mouse · 33 samples

What it is
RNA-seq (gene expression)Gene activity measured by sequencing. The summary does not mention single-cell work, so this is most likely bulk: one average per sample, the usual starting point for comparing groups.
Organism
Mus musculus (mouse)
Samples
33 samples: 9 × female offspring / benzene exposed mother library# vs 9 × male offspring / control mother library# vs 7 × male offspring / benzene exposed mother library# vs 7 × female offspring / control mother library#Groups are read from the sample names, not from the paper. Check the list below.
Data you can get
A processed table (series matrix) and supplementary files from NCBI; the raw sequencing reads from ENA. Which of these hold counts depends on the study, so check the file list.
Summary (written by the submitters)
Maternal exposure to environmental contaminants during pregnancy poses a significant threat to a developing fetus, as these substances can easily cross the placenta and disrupt the neurodevelopment of offspring. Specifically, the hypothalamus is essential in the regulation of metabolism, notably during critical windows of development.An abnormal hormonal and inflammatory milieu during development can trigger persistent changes in the function of hypothalamic circuits, leading to long-lasting effects on the body’s energy homeostasis and metabolism.
Read the full summary ↓
We recently demonstrated that gestational exposure to clinically relevant levels of benzene induces severe metabolic dysregulation in the offspring. Given the central role of the hypothalamus in metabolic control, we hypothesized that prenatal exposure to benzene impacts hypothalamic development, contributing to the adverse metabolic effects in the offspring. C57BL/6JB dams were exposed to benzene at 50 ppm in the inhalation chambers exclusively during pregnancy (from E0.5 to E19). Transcriptomic analysis of the exposed offspring at postnatal day 21 (P21) revealed hypothalamic changes in genes related to metabolic regulation, inflammation, and neurodevelopment exclusively in males. Moreover, the hypothalamus of prenatally benzene-exposed male offspring displayed alterations in orexigenic and anorexigenic projections, impairments in leptin signaling, and increased microgliosis. Additional exposure to benzene during lactation did not promote further microgliosis or astrogliosis in the offspring, while the high-fat diet (HFD) challenge in adulthood exacerbated glucose metabolism and hypothalamic inflammation in benzene-exposed offspring of both sexes. These findings reveal the persistent adverse effects of prenatal benzene exposure on hypothalamic circuits and neuroinflammation, predisposing the offspring to long-lasting metabolic health conditions.
This dataset
Open GSE229440 in finder → Find more mouse RNA-seq datasets →
Download · which file do I need?

Direct links to NCBI and ENA, no account and no request form. Pick by what you want to do: take the small processed table to look, the supplementary files to re-analyse, or the original raw data to start over.

1 · Just have a look

Processed table

The series matrix: one table of values per sample as the submitters processed it. The smallest download, and it opens in Excel or R. Start here to see what the data look like.

Series matrix ↓
2 · Re-analyse it

Supplementary files

The count tables and other files the authors uploaded. Take only the samples you need, or the whole study as GSE229440_RAW.tar (it can run to tens of gigabytes).

All supplementary files ↗ Whole study · RAW.tar ↓
3 · Start from the raw reads

Raw sequencing reads

The original FASTQ files, straight from the sequencer, held at ENA. Large, and you align them yourself, so only choose this if you need to re-process the study from scratch.

Raw reads on ENA ↗

What the files usually look like: For RNA-seq the counts are usually a table among the supplementary files (look for 'counts', 'expression', 'FPKM' or 'TPM' in the file name). The series matrix of a sequencing study is sometimes nearly empty.

Also filed as BioProject PRJNA954440 and SRA study SRP432065. Searching any of these in the dataset finder brings you back here.

NCBI GEO page ↗
Study design
9 × female offspring / benzene exposed mother library# vs 9 × male offspring / control mother library# vs 7 × male offspring / benzene exposed mother library# vs 7 × female offspring / control mother library#

Supports a between-group comparison across 32 samples.

How we read this: 4 replicated groups read from 33 sample titles; they account for 32 of them. These groups are guessed from the sample names, not taken from the paper, so check them against the sample list below before relying on them.

Samples in this study
Datasets on a similar topic

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