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Fatherhood reduces the survival of adult-generated cells and affects various types of behavior in the prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster ).

ABSTRACT: Motherhood has profound effects on physiology, neuronal plasticity, and behavior. We conducted a series of experiments to test the hypothesis that fatherhood, similarly to motherhood, affects brain plasticity (such as cell proliferation and survival) and various behaviors in the highly social prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster). In Experiment 1, adult males were housed with their same-sex cage mate (control), single-housed (isolation), or housed with a receptive female to mate and produce offspring (father) for 6 weeks. Fatherhood significantly reduced cell survival (assessed by bromodeoxyuridine labeling), but not cell proliferation (assessed by Ki67-labeling), in the amygdala, dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, and ventromedial hypothalamus, suggesting that fatherhood affects brain plasticity. In Experiment 2, neither acute (20 min) nor chronic (20 min daily for 10 consecutive days) pup exposure altered cell proliferation or survival in the brain, but chronic pup exposure increased circulating corticosterone levels. These data suggest that reduced cell survival in the brain of prairie vole fathers was unlikely to be due to the level of pup exposure and display of paternal behavior, and may not be mediated by circulating corticosterone. The effects of fatherhood on various behaviors (including anxiety-like, depression-like, and social behaviors) were examined in Experiment 3. The data indicated that fatherhood increased anxiety- and depression-like behaviors as well as altered aggression and social recognition memory in male prairie voles. These results warrant further investigation of a possible link between brain plasticity and behavioral changes observed due to fatherhood.

SUBMITTER: Lieberwirth C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3983785 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Fatherhood reduces the survival of adult-generated cells and affects various types of behavior in the prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster ).

Lieberwirth Claudia C Wang Yue Y Jia Xixi X Liu Yan Y Wang Zuoxin Z

The European journal of neuroscience 20130731 9

Motherhood has profound effects on physiology, neuronal plasticity, and behavior. We conducted a series of experiments to test the hypothesis that fatherhood, similarly to motherhood, affects brain plasticity (such as cell proliferation and survival) and various behaviors in the highly social prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster). In Experiment 1, adult males were housed with their same-sex cage mate (control), single-housed (isolation), or housed with a receptive female to mate and produce offspr ...[more]

PMID: 23899240

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Project description:The prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) is a premier animal model for understanding the genetic and neurological basis of social behaviors. Unlike other biomedical models, prairie voles display a rich repertoire of social behaviors including the formation of long-term pair bonds and biparental care. However, due to a lack of genomic resources for this species, studies have been limited to a handful of candidate genes. To provide a substrate for future development of genomic resources for this unique model organism, we report the construction and characterization of a bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) library from a single male prairie vole and a prairie vole-mouse (Mus musculus) comparative cytogenetic map.We constructed a prairie vole BAC library (CHORI-232) consisting of 194,267 recombinant clones with an average insert size of 139 kb. Hybridization-based screening of the gridded library at 19 loci established that the library has an average depth of coverage of approximately 10x. To obtain a small-scale sampling of the prairie vole genome, we generated 3884 BAC end-sequences totaling approximately 2.8 Mb. One-third of these BAC-end sequences could be mapped to unique locations in the mouse genome, thereby anchoring 1003 prairie vole BAC clones to an orthologous position in the mouse genome. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) mapping of 62 prairie vole clones with BAC-end sequences mapping to orthologous positions in the mouse genome was used to develop a first-generation genome-wide prairie vole-mouse comparative cytogenetic map. While conserved synteny was observed between this pair of rodent genomes, rearrangements between the prairie vole and mouse genomes were detected, including a minimum of five inversions and 16 inter-chromosomal rearrangements.The construction of the prairie vole BAC library and the vole-mouse comparative cytogenetic map represent the first genome-wide modern genomic resources developed for this species. The BAC library will support future genomic, genetic and molecular characterization of this genome and species, and the isolation of clones of high interest to the vole research community will allow for immediate characterization of the regulatory and coding sequences of genes known to play important roles in social behaviors. In addition, these resources provide an excellent platform for future higher resolution cytogenetic mapping and full genome sequencing.

Dataset Information

Fatherhood reduces the survival of adult-generated cells and affects various types of behavior in the prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster ).

Publications

Fatherhood reduces the survival of adult-generated cells and affects various types of behavior in the prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster ).

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