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Seasonal regulation of behaviour: what role do hormone receptors play?

ABSTRACT: Many animals differentially express behaviours across the annual cycle as life stages are coordinated with seasonal environmental conditions. Understanding of the mechanistic basis of such seasonal changes in behaviour has traditionally focused on the role of changes in circulating hormone levels. However, it is increasingly apparent that other endocrine regulation mechanisms such as changes in local hormone synthesis and receptor abundance also play a role. Here I review what is known about seasonal changes in steroid hormone receptor abundance in relation to seasonal behaviour in vertebrates. I find that there is widespread, though not ubiquitous, seasonal variation in the expression of steroid hormone receptors in the brain, with such variation being best documented in association with courtship, mating and aggression. The most common pattern of seasonal variation is for there to be upregulation of sex steroid receptors with the expression of courtship and mating behaviours, when circulating hormone levels are also high. Less well-documented are cases in which seasonal increases in receptor expression could compensate for low circulating hormone levels or seasonal downregulation that could serve a protective function. I conclude by identifying important directions for future research.

SUBMITTER: Watts HE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7423477 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Seasonal regulation of behaviour: what role do hormone receptors play?

Watts Heather E HE

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20200708 1930

Many animals differentially express behaviours across the annual cycle as life stages are coordinated with seasonal environmental conditions. Understanding of the mechanistic basis of such seasonal changes in behaviour has traditionally focused on the role of changes in circulating hormone levels. However, it is increasingly apparent that other endocrine regulation mechanisms such as changes in local hormone synthesis and receptor abundance also play a role. Here I review what is known about sea ...[more]

PMID: 32635860

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Project description:Abscisic acid (ABA) is a key hormone for plant growth, development and stress adaptation. Perception of ABA through four types of receptors has been reported. We show here that impairment of ABA perception through the PYR/PYL/RCAR branch reduces vegetative growth and seed production, and leads to a severely open stomata and dramatic ABA insensitive phenotype, even though other branches for ABA perception remain functional. Arabidopsis sextuple mutant impaired in 6 PYR/PYL receptors, namely PYR1, PYL1, PYL2, PYL4, PYL5 and PYL8, was able to germinate and grow even on 100 mM ABA. Whole-rosette stomatal conductance (Gst) measurements revealed that leaf transpiration in the sextuple pyr/pyl mutant was higher than in the ABA-deficient aba3-1 or ABA-insensitive snrk2.6 mutants. The gradually increasing Gst values of plants lacking three, four, five and six PYR/PYLs indicate quantitative regulation of stomatal aperture by this family of receptors. The sextuple mutant lacked ABA-mediated activation of SnRK2s and ABA-responsive gene expression was dramatically impaired as was reported in snrk2.2/2.3/2.6. In summary, these results show that ABA perception by PYR/PYLs plays a major role to regulate seed germination and establishment, basal ABA signaling required for vegetative and reproductive growth, stomatal aperture and transcriptional response to the hormone. Four biological replicates were generated for the 3 genotypes, pyr1pyl1pyl2pyl4pyl5pyl8 sextuple mutant, snrk2.2/2.3/2.6 triple mutant, and Col-0. All the samples were treated with ABA for 3 hours before harvesting. The four Col-0 samples were mix to create an unique reference Col-0 sample. Two comparasion were made, fisrt one, PYR/PYL sextuple mutant versus Col-0 reference sample and second one, SnRK2 triple mutant versus Col-0 reference sample. In each comparasion four biological replicates were made. Replicas number 1 and 2 were labeled with Cy5 for the mutant sample and Cy3 for the Col-0 reference sample, while the other two replicas,#3 and #4, were reversed-labeled.

Project description:BackgroundDigital media are increasingly abundant providing a wide scope of health information. To date, very little is known about parental health information seeking behaviour for child health outside of English-speaking and Nordic countries. Our study "Digital parental counsellors" examines how parents search for health information in digital media, print media and among "personal contacts", distinguishing between the search for information about general child health and development and child's acute illness, and comparing information seeking behaviour by disability status of the child.MethodsThe population-based sample consisted of 769 parents with children aged 0-2 in the German-speaking region of Switzerland returning the study questionnaire (30% response rate). We developed a frequency score of use of different information sources and conducted bivariate and multivariate linear regression analyses to describe parental search behaviour and the association with child's disability status.ResultsThe sample consists of 88% mothers (mean age: 35.7 years SD 4.33). Children's mean age is 16 months (SD 7.1), 49% of the children are female and 6% have a disability. Parents use digital media significantly more frequently to search for information about general health and development questions than about an acute child's illness (p < 0.001). In case of acute child's illness, parents refer to their paediatrician, family members and other personal contacts significantly more frequently than other information sources (p < 0.001). The use of digital media and "personal contacts" does not significantly vary between parents with and without a disabled child, whereas the use of print media does (p < 0.02). Moreover, irrespective of disability, 45% of parents resort to the Internet prior to a paediatric visit and 27% after a visit when a visit did not answer all questions.ConclusionsDespite the high prevalence of digital media, personal contacts are still the most frequent health information resource for parents with young children, irrespective of the child's health. Parents combine all information resources (online, print, personal network) to improve their understanding or check the validity of information received regarding their child's health. It is thus of utmost importance, that the increasingly accessed digital information parents search for is correct, understandable and addresses parent's concerns.Trial registrationBASEC Req-2017-00817 (30 October 2017).

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Seasonal regulation of behaviour: what role do hormone receptors play?

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Seasonal regulation of behaviour: what role do hormone receptors play?

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