3.3.2 Immediate versus delayed postmortem tissue harvesting
We found no significant difference (adjusted p- value < 0.05) in gene expression between samples for which tissues were harvested immediately versus ~5 minutes after euthanasia. QuantSeq data identified only 1 out of 38,864 genes (0.003%) that were significantly differentially expressed between tissue harvesting times across all tissue types. Similar to what was observed between sampling techniques, when tissues were analyzed separately for harvesting times, 0 out of 27,401 genes were differentially expressed in blood, 18 out of 15,310 genes (0.1%) in gills, and 3 out of 34,460 genes (0.009%) in muscle (Table S2 on Dryad). NEB data (available for blood samples only) was similar to QuantSeq data, with only 6 out of 23,265 genes (0.03%) showing differential expression between the two sampling methods (Table S2 on Dryad).