Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 280, Issue 1753, Pages -Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2012.2605
Keywords
early social environment; gene expression; stress response; glucocorticoid receptor; corticotropin-releasing factor; fish
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Funding
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) [3100A0-111796, 31003A_133066]
- Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [18647-B16]
- Berne University Research Foundation
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC Discovery grant)
- Fonds Quebecois de la Recherche sur la Nature et les Technologies (FQRNT Nouveau chercheur)
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) [31003A_133066] Funding Source: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF)
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Adult social behaviour can be persistently modified by early-life social experience. In rodents, such effects are induced by tactile maternal stimulation resulting in neuroendocrine modifications of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis involved in stress responsiveness. Whether similar long-term alterations can occur in the hypothalamic-pituitary-interrenal (HPI) axis of poikilothermic vertebrates is unknown. We compared the expression of four genes of the HPI axis in adults of the cooperatively breeding cichlid Neolamprologus pulcher, which had been exposed to two early-life social treatments 1.5 years prior to brain sampling. Fish reared with parents and siblings had less brain expression of corticotropin-releasing factor and of the functional homologue of the mammalian glucocorticoid receptor (GR1) than individuals reared with same-age siblings only. Expression of the mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) did not differ between treatments, but the MR/GR1 expression ratio was markedly higher in fish reared with parents and siblings. Thus, we show here that early social experience can alter the programming of the stress axis in poikilothermic vertebrates, suggesting that this mechanism is deeply conserved within vertebrates. Moreover, we show for the first time that reprogramming of the stress axis of a vertebrate can be induced without tactile stimulation by parents.
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