Social Crowding during Development Causes Changes in GnRH1 DNA Methylation

Gestational and developmental cues have important consequences for long-term health, behavior and adaptation to the environment. In addition, social stressors cause plastic molecular changes in the brain that underlie unique behavioral phenotypes that also modulate fitness. In the adult African cich...

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Main Authors:	Alvarado, Sebastian G., Lenkov, Kapa, Williams, Blake, Fernald, Russell D.
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2015
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4627844/

id	pubmed-4627844
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-46278442015-11-06 Social Crowding during Development Causes Changes in GnRH1 DNA Methylation Alvarado, Sebastian G. Lenkov, Kapa Williams, Blake Fernald, Russell D. Research Article Gestational and developmental cues have important consequences for long-term health, behavior and adaptation to the environment. In addition, social stressors cause plastic molecular changes in the brain that underlie unique behavioral phenotypes that also modulate fitness. In the adult African cichlid, Astatotilapia burtoni, growth and social status of males are both directly regulated by social interactions in a dynamic social environment, which causes a suite of plastic changes in circuits, cells and gene transcription in the brain. We hypothesized that a possible mechanism underlying some molecular changes might be DNA methylation, a reversible modification made to cytosine nucleotides that is known to regulate gene function. Here we asked whether changes in DNA methylation of the GnRH1 gene, the central regulator of the reproductive axis, were altered during development of A. burtoni. We measured changes in methylation state of the GnRH1 gene during normal development and following the gestational and developmental stress of social crowding. We found differential DNA methylation within developing juveniles between 14-, 28- and 42-day-old. Following gestational crowding of mouth brooding mothers, we saw differential methylation and transcription of GnRH1 in their offspring. Taken together, our data provides evidence for social control of GnRH1 developmental responses to gestational cues through DNA methylation. Public Library of Science 2015-10-30 /pmc/articles/PMC4627844/ /pubmed/26517121 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0142043 Text en © 2015 Alvarado et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Alvarado, Sebastian G. Lenkov, Kapa Williams, Blake Fernald, Russell D.
spellingShingle	Alvarado, Sebastian G. Lenkov, Kapa Williams, Blake Fernald, Russell D. Social Crowding during Development Causes Changes in GnRH1 DNA Methylation
author_facet	Alvarado, Sebastian G. Lenkov, Kapa Williams, Blake Fernald, Russell D.
author_sort	Alvarado, Sebastian G.
title	Social Crowding during Development Causes Changes in GnRH1 DNA Methylation
title_short	Social Crowding during Development Causes Changes in GnRH1 DNA Methylation
title_full	Social Crowding during Development Causes Changes in GnRH1 DNA Methylation
title_fullStr	Social Crowding during Development Causes Changes in GnRH1 DNA Methylation
title_full_unstemmed	Social Crowding during Development Causes Changes in GnRH1 DNA Methylation
title_sort	social crowding during development causes changes in gnrh1 dna methylation
description	Gestational and developmental cues have important consequences for long-term health, behavior and adaptation to the environment. In addition, social stressors cause plastic molecular changes in the brain that underlie unique behavioral phenotypes that also modulate fitness. In the adult African cichlid, Astatotilapia burtoni, growth and social status of males are both directly regulated by social interactions in a dynamic social environment, which causes a suite of plastic changes in circuits, cells and gene transcription in the brain. We hypothesized that a possible mechanism underlying some molecular changes might be DNA methylation, a reversible modification made to cytosine nucleotides that is known to regulate gene function. Here we asked whether changes in DNA methylation of the GnRH1 gene, the central regulator of the reproductive axis, were altered during development of A. burtoni. We measured changes in methylation state of the GnRH1 gene during normal development and following the gestational and developmental stress of social crowding. We found differential DNA methylation within developing juveniles between 14-, 28- and 42-day-old. Following gestational crowding of mouth brooding mothers, we saw differential methylation and transcription of GnRH1 in their offspring. Taken together, our data provides evidence for social control of GnRH1 developmental responses to gestational cues through DNA methylation.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2015
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4627844/
_version_	1613495521892106240

Social Crowding during Development Causes Changes in GnRH1 DNA Methylation

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