This data article presents complementary results pertaining to the research article entitled "Sub-acute restraint stress progressively increases oxidative/nitrosative stress and inflammatory markers while transiently upregulating antioxidant gene expression in the rat hippocampus" (Chen et al., 2018). The present article provides additional gene expression data of selected neuroinflammatory markers and regulatory enzymes involved in oxidation-reduction reactions. Male Wistar rats aged 7-8 weeks were exposed to control, 1, 2, or 3 episodes of 6-h restraint stress in the light cycle after which the whole brain was quickly removed and the hippocampus excised for relative gene expression analysis. Specifically, mRNA levels of inflammatory regulators including allograft inflammatory factor 1, class II major histocompatibility complex, integrin alpha M, interferon gamma, and prostaglandin-endoperoxide synthase 2 were analyzed by real-time PCR. The gene expression of redox regulatory enzymes including glutathione peroxidase 1, glutathione peroxidase 4, superoxide dismutase 1, superoxide dismutase 2, myeloperoxidase, and NADPH oxidase subunit P47phox were also determined. These data provide useful insights in the molecular basis of inflammatory and redox regulation in the hippocampus following a short term to repeated psychological challenge in rats.
Keywords: Hippocampus; Neuroinflammatory response; Redox enzymes; Stress.