Testosterone Affects Neural Gene Expression Differently in Male and Female Juncos: A Role for Hormones in Mediating Sexual Dimorphism and Conflict

Autor: John K. Colbourne, Ellen D. Ketterson, Kimberly A. Rosvall, Charles Ziegenfus, Haixu Tang, Jeong Hyeon Choi, Mark P. Peterson
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2013
Předmět:
Male
Animal sexual behaviour
Anatomy and Physiology
Microarrays
Gene Expression
Sexual conflict
Behavioral Ecology
0302 clinical medicine
Ornithology
Molecular Cell Biology
Membrane Receptor Signaling
Testosterone
Passeriformes
Junco
Genetics
Neurons
0303 health sciences
Evolutionary Theory
Sex Characteristics
Multidisciplinary
Ecology
Animal Behavior
Systems Biology
Genomics
Hormone Receptor Signaling
Functional Genomics
Medicine
Female
Sex characteristics
Research Article
Signal Transduction
Science
Hypothalamus
Endocrine System
Biology
03 medical and health sciences
Animals
030304 developmental biology
Evolutionary Biology
Sex-limited genes
Endocrine Physiology
Computational Biology
biology.organism_classification
Hormones
Sexual dimorphism
Genome Expression Analysis
Zoology
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Hormone
Neuroscience
Zdroj: PLoS ONE
PLoS ONE, Vol 8, Iss 4, p e61784 (2013)
ISSN: 1932-6203
Popis: Despite sharing much of their genomes, males and females are often highly dimorphic, reflecting at least in part the resolution of sexual conflict in response to sexually antagonistic selection. Sexual dimorphism arises owing to sex differences in gene expression, and steroid hormones are often invoked as a proximate cause of sexual dimorphism. Experimental elevation of androgens can modify behavior, physiology, and gene expression, but knowledge of the role of hormones remains incomplete, including how the sexes differ in gene expression in response to hormones. We addressed these questions in a bird species with a long history of behavioral endocrinological and ecological study, the dark-eyed junco (Junco hyemalis), using a custom microarray. Focusing on two brain regions involved in sexually dimorphic behavior and regulation of hormone secretion, we identified 651 genes that differed in expression by sex in medial amygdala and 611 in hypothalamus. Additionally, we treated individuals of each sex with testosterone implants and identified many genes that may be related to previously identified phenotypic effects of testosterone treatment. Some of these genes relate to previously identified effects of testosterone-treatment and suggest that the multiple effects of testosterone may be mediated by modifying the expression of a small number of genes. Notably, testosterone-treatment tended to alter expression of different genes in each sex: only 4 of the 527 genes identified as significant in one sex or the other were significantly differentially expressed in both sexes. Hormonally regulated gene expression is a key mechanism underlying sexual dimorphism, and our study identifies specific genes that may mediate some of these processes.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
Externí odkaz: